What are the Requirements for Valves in the Pharmaceutical Industry?

A valve is a control component in a pipeline transportation system, which can be used to control the flow of various types of fluids such as air, water, steam, various corrosive media, muds, oils, liquid metals and radioactive media. In the pharmaceutical industry, valves are used in large quantities.

In the pharmaceutical industry, the pipeline can be roughly divided into two kinds, namely the API pipeline and the preparation pipeline. In the pharmaceutical industry, the medium to be transported is more common, mainly concentrated in demineralized water, purified water, water for injection, pure steam, and process compressed air.

The pipeline in the pharmaceutical industry must consider "clean quality" as the top priority. Therefore, the pharmaceutical industry has higher requirements for the smoothness, cleanliness, flatness, and corrosion resistance of valves equipment. In order to better meet the requirements of the pharmaceutical industry and put more sophisticated valve equipment into the pharmaceutical market, the valve industry is undergoing transformation and upgrading work, adjusting the product structure, and developing equipment products with intellectual property rights.

In a good macro policy environment, the valve market has a broader development prospect. According to relevant data statistics, China's industrial valve market will usher in a new development cycle, and the industrial valve market will exceed 20 billion yuan in 2020.

Professionals say that at present, China's valve industry is in a more favorable period of development. According to statistics, there are currently more than 3,000 valve manufacturing enterprises in China that can produce gate valves, throttle valves, ball valves, globe valves, butterfly valves, diaphragm valves, etc. to meet the needs of various fields.

In addition, under the influence of the above market background, China's valve technology is also rising. Taking the technical level of valves in the pharmaceutical industry as an example, to provide customers with relevant support, some valve companies have developed intelligent products. According to the introduction of technical staff, intelligent valve products mainly have the following advantages:

1. It can identify the information of the valve body, actuator and diaphragm. 

2. It can identify the product information and survival information. 

3. It can improve the reliability of the process through the traceability of the information. 

4. It can create specific electronic documents (such as certification documents).

5. Maintain logs and optimize maintenance processes.

6. Enhance the intelligence of instruments (installation qualification).

7. Paperless office and maintenance.

However, in the mid-to-high-end valve market, the development is still inadequate. The market is still dominated by advanced international companies, and the share of valve companies in China is relatively low. However, analysts point out that this also means that there is huge market development potential in China's valve industry.

"Overall, there are four major shortcomings in China's valve industry, including irrational industrial structure and severe overcapacity, weak independent innovation capabilities and low product quality, lack of influential brands, imperfect industry standards." Valve experts point out that, especially in the field of core technology, the market share of valve companies in China is not high.

Therefore, if valve companies want to capture more market share, they must also be passive to take the initiative, build core competitiveness, and always maintain a sense of crisis, aim at market demand, strive to improve valve product quality and technology, and use more advanced, intelligent valve equipment products to open the market, and help China's valve industry to move higher and farther.