Cake Thickness Measurement in a Batch Centrifuge

Batch centrifuging is a common process in pharmaceutical API production, and is used to separate recently crystallised solids from the waste mother liquor.

A meshed basket spins as the solids / liquid mixture is introduced by spraying evenly along the height of the basket. The mesh size is small enough to retain the solids, whilst allowing the liquid to pass through. The retained solids build up on the basket wall, forming what is known as the cake. The thickness of the cake is measured in order to know when to stop filling the centrifuge, and move onto the various washing and spinning cycles in order to clean the product within the centrifuge before it moves on for further processing.

The camera light combination system is mounted to the centrifuge using the Canty angled mounting plate. The Cantyvision level /edge tool can be configured to track any edge based on the difference in colour or grayscale of 2 materials / components. In a batch centrifuge, this edge is the intersection between the product cake and the centrifuge base plate. This edge tracking is a direct measurement of cake thickness.