DHL Express is Well Positioned for COVID-19 Vaccine Logistics
9. January 2021Digital Box for Temperature-Sensitive Medications and Vaccines
9. January 2021The Swiss CO2 specialist Asco Kohlensäure AG offers dry ice producers and distributors an effective solution to produce the required amount of dry ice on-site and automatically fill it into transport boxes. This allows Asco to respond quickly to numerous inquiries seeking such a solution.
(Romanshorn/Switzerland) Asco Kohlensäure AG expands its product portfolio with customizable filling and transfer systems for dry ice production. Especially during the global shipping of the COVID-19 vaccine, an uninterrupted cold chain down to -80°C and effective work processes are crucial.
“We were able to respond quickly to numerous inquiries looking for a solution for filling dry ice into shipping boxes or transferring large dry ice containers into shipping boxes,” says Marco Pellegrino, Managing Director of Asco Kohlensäure AG. Thus, the company expands its dry ice technology portfolio with two dosing units that are particularly used in the pharmaceutical, logistics, and food industries.
Automated Pre-Filling of Shipping Boxes
The new dry ice filling system (dosing system) is compatible with all Asco pelletizers and includes, in its standard version, two dry ice production lines with dry ice dosing units and a conveyor system depending on capacity requirements. This enables automated pre-filling of (shipping) boxes with freshly produced dry ice. Subsequently, for example, vaccine doses are placed in the box and automatically filled with dry ice again. Finally, the box just needs to be sealed for shipping.
The Asco dry ice transfer system is particularly suitable for the pharmaceutical, logistics, and food industries when the dry ice is already purchased. With the new solution, the dry ice, delivered in containers from the supplier, can be transferred into the dosing unit through a lifting process. From there, a weight-based dosing of the dry ice through pre-defined recipes allows for automatic filling into customer boxes. This enables the quickest possible use of dry ice with minimal personnel involvement.
Maintaining the Cold Chain
Since maintaining the cold chain is particularly critical in the food and pharmaceutical sectors, Asco Kohlensäure AG has focused intensively in recent weeks on providing the two dry ice filling systems. The challenges of shipping the COVID-19 vaccine, producing a large amount of dry ice in a short time, and dosing it into shipping boxes reinforced the company’s efforts.
Asco Kohlensäure AG
The Swiss Asco Kohlensäure AG is a globally operating company that offers complete solutions around CO2 and dry ice.
The service offering ranges from CO2 production and CO2 recovery systems, dry ice blasting machines, dry ice production machines to CO2 bottle filling systems, CO2 evaporators, and CO2 storage tanks, CO2 dosing systems for water neutralization, and various other CO2 and dry ice equipment. Thanks to this wide product range and over 130 years of practical experience in the comprehensive CO2 and dry ice field, customers benefit from individual, complete CO2 solutions from a single source.
Since 2007, Asco has been part of the international industrial gases company Messer Group and is its competence center for CO2. Through the merger with the German BUSE Gastek GmbH & Co. KG based in Bad Hönningen in 2014, the joint expertise and product portfolio, especially in the complex field of CO2 recovery, were bundled and significantly expanded. In July 2016, the US subsidiary Asco CARBON DIOXIDE INC (Asco Inc.) was founded in Jacksonville, Florida.
Photo: © Asco
