POWTECH TechnoPharm 2014 Powder-Bulk-Solids And A Focus on Pharmaceuticals

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Mechanical processes and raw materials in the form of powder, bulk and solids are everywhere in the industry, be it ingredients for pharmaceutical or chemical products, sugar and flour for food, plastic granulate to produce all kinds of products and components or the stones and cement to build our houses.

Every 18 months the industry gathers in Nuremberg, Germany for the POWTECH exhibition. This year more than 900 exhibitors from 30 countries and 15.000 visitors found their way to the show grounds.  The show's aim is to reflect the current state of mechanical processing technologies and instrumentations and to present innovations in size reduction, screening, mixing, conveying, dosing and granulating.

POWTECH is an industrial show as one would imagine, machines and systems demonstrate noisily their purpose of mechanically handling and processing all those ingredients our industries need to produce the high-tech ingredients of modern living. Almost every object we depend on in our daily life has started out as a powder or granule. The methods have mostly been developed years ago and the innovation grade tends to be low, yet the manufacturers are passionate about tweaking and improving their mechanical devices and always willing to discuss and execute custom adaptations to user's needs.

As part of the modern industrial production these mechanical devices naturally offer the electronics to operate them and integrate them into the process. Especially in their natural habitat of batch production, recipe computers, analytical technologies and instrumentation as well as integration into the automation and control system have become self-evident. Equipment for tracing applications to guarantee quality and compliance with international standards were prominent too.

The partners for the mechanical processing are the instrumentation and analytical technology manufacturers, who are always present at the POWTECH show. This year over a third of the exhibitors presented products from these areas.  The products presented include analytical instruments, sensors and meters, for variables ranging from flow and level to moisture and temperature and analytical parameters.

In parallel with POWTECH visitors could visit the exhibitors of the TechnoPharm event, the forum for the manufacture of solid and liquid pharmaceuticals and the related research. The next edition of POWTECH in Nuremberg, 19–21 April 2016, will see TechnoPharm integrated into POWTECH. Under the name of "Pharma.Manufacturing.Excellence, associated exhibitors will have a focus topic with forums and special shows. Pharma is one of six industry clusters targeted by the show, next to chemistry, processing, pit & quarry, ceramic & glass and food & feed.

Justifying the decision, Willy Viethen, Exhibitions Director at NürnbergMesse, says: "More than half the POWTECH exhibitors offer solutions relevant to pharmaceuticals. There were also many companies at TechnoPharm that do not produce exclusively for the pharmaceutical industry. With the integration we are meeting a longstanding request of the exhibitors and visitors to no longer physically separate the two exhibitions".