Solvent recovery and recycling is the best way of dealing with the solvents used in the manufacture of medicinal pharmaceutical products at Cork, Ireland. It means that less fresh solvent has to be purchased and also reduces the amount of waste solvent that was incinerated.

The recovery facility has two distillation towers and is used to extract five different solvents. It is fully automated, with computerised control systems that handle up to 2 million tonnes of distillate per hour. It is estimated to save about £3 million per year.

Tonnes of solvent recycled