Emerson Process Management has recently supplied several contracts with their Fisher tank blanketing regulators. A recent contract has involved the supply of over 180 stainless steel regulators from the Fisher Y690/95 Series of units, used to control the supply of nitrogen as an inert tank blanketing gas, to protect the atmosphere within the pharmaceutical fermentation and process liquid storage vessels. Tank blanketing is needed when a stored liquid product is volatile, or flammable, or would deteriorate when exposed to oxygen or air, or the moisture in the atmosphere. Blanketing, or padding, is the practice of covering a stored commodity, usually a liquid, with an inert gas supply. The Fisher regulators are mechanical devices that automatically control the delivery of the gas, and can also allow recovery of the blanketing gases on filling the tanks. Produced at the Emerson European regulator supply centre, situated at Bologna in Italy, many of these Fisher stainless steel regulators have been specially modified for pharmaceutical use, by replacing the internal non-metallic flexible parts, such as the sensor diaphragms, with FDA approved materials as appropriate.
