Paper Title
Design and Analysis of Automated Degasser for Pharmaceutical Applications

Abstract
In pharmaceutical industry, degassing is widely used to remove dissolved oxygen from various solutions. This is performed for various reasons including the restriction of growth of bacteria in the solution. This paper discusses design of an automatic degassing system which monitors the dissolved oxygen quantity in any solution, continuously without human intervention. The entire process of transferring the solution to degassing tank is fully automated, including start and stop of degassing process and transfer of the degassed solution from degassing chamber to storage tank where it is maintained in its degassed state and at a certain temperature. In this process, the quantity of dissolved oxygen, pH value, and temperature values at various steps are monitored through various sensors. The sensor signals are used to control the process through an indigenously developed Programmable Logic Control (PLC) code that executes actuation signals for the operation of field actuators such as valves, stirrer, and pumps. The process can be operated in batch as well as continuous manner. Keywords - Degassing, Dissolved oxygen, Human Machine Interface, Programmable Logic Control