Case Study Global Medical Device Manufacturer

What were the challenges?

Endoscope cleaning machines across Australasia include a validated 0.1-micron membrane which becomes frequently blocked in certain feedwater conditions. In some cities these membranes are known to block daily in cases, causing high running costs, increased downtime of the machine, and stress on operators to perform filter changeouts under pressure.

The nature of some municipal feedwater includes high levels of colloidal silica, which will easily pass through multiple prefilters before blocking the final membrane. In some cases, three of four prefilter stages would be used, increasing running costs, but still yielding the desired outcome.

What was the solution?

BHF worked with the customer to develop a proprietary warm water UF system, which could generate UF quality water (0.03 micron) and a hot water recirculation system with endotoxin polishing. This enables small footprint to provide purified warm water via an integrated distribution loop, to supply up to five endoscopic cleaning machines simultaneously.

What were the specific results achieved?

Reduced usage of the internal membrane of the endoscope cleaning machine and improved service life from days or weeks up to the validated capsule life of three months.

Our system satisfied endotoxin regulatory compliance specifications of less than 30EU/ml. This eliminated the need for prefiltration on the systems, and with its automated function, freed up valuable time of services providers.