Thawing station

The innovative HOF waterbath & debottling system was developed for automated, targeted defrosting of frozen plasma bottles, allowing the remaining frozen core and the surrounding liquid to be removed easily after cutting open the bottles.

Fully automated transport
First operators load the magazine which can contain up to 16 bottles. The bottles are then moved onto the conveyor belt and into the 4 tracks of the water bath.

Defrosting process of the human plasma
There, the plasma bottles move through the heated water bath while submerged. The defrosting causes a thin layer of the human plasma to thaw at the contact surface with the plastic bottles. At the end of the water bath, the plasma bottles are sprayed with hot WFI to counteract germs and particles on the bottle surface. They now surpass an air knife to remove potential remaining condensate.

Fully automated cutting station – “guillotine”
Then the plasma bottles drop into the “collection hopper”, in an upright position for the first robot ... which grabs the plasma bottles and guides them into the subsequent cutting station. From the other side, the second robot grips the plasma bottles by the base. Then the bottles are cut in half.