Detergents Used in Pharmaceuticals

Cleaning is a very important part of pharmaceutical manufacturing to manufacture contamination-free quality products.

Facility cleaning and sanitization is an important part of GMP compliance. In this post, we will explore the importance and use of detergents used in the cleaning of pharmaceutical equipment used in manufacturing.

Detergents are specially formulated cleaning agents used to remove various types of contaminants from the surface.

Many types of detergents are there in the market like anionic, cationic, amphoteric, alkaline detergents etc.

This nature of any detergent depends upon the cleaning nature of the surfactant found in the detergent.

All these detergents have their specific use due to their surface cleaning properties.

Key Considerations for Selecting Detergents You can not compare the cleaning of cloths with the cleaning of pharmaceutical equipment used in manufacturing.

Following points to be considered before selecting a detergent for pharmaceutical use.

1. The detergent used in cleaning must be compatible with the equipment materials such as stainless steel, glass and plastic.

2. Most of the detergents leave residue after cleaning and may contaminate the products.

A residue-free detergent is necessary for cleaning.

3. Detergent should have antimicrobial properties to control the microorganisms present on the surface of the equipment.

All of the above detergents have free ions and these are left after cleaning the cleaned surface.

A mixture of nonionic and anionic detergent is found to be an anionic detergent.

These free ions can have a harmful effect on the pharmaceutical products and affect their stability.

Therefore, nonionic detergents are used for cleaning of equipment in pharmaceutical manufacturing.

Nonionic detergents are also required to clean the glassware used in the pharmaceutical analysis because these free ions can alter the results of the analysis.

Nonionic Detergents are used in pharmaceutical equipment cleaning to protect product contamination.