Filling machines for fine chemicals, bulk pharma and cosmetics
Active ingredients, intermediates, excipients, specialty chemicals and cosmetic bulk — filled into pails, drums and IBCs (totes), at the point where a batch becomes a numbered container that somebody else will process.
If your product leaves the plant in drums, pails or IBCs, this is your page. If you fill vials, ampoules or blisters, it is not — that is a different machine and a different industry.
We work with fine chemistry and bulk pharmaceutical production, not with finished dosage forms. It is a distinction worth making early, because it saves both of us a meeting.
Every container, recorded
The machine weighs every container and records date, time, tare and net weight of each one, in CSV.
Not a sample. Not an average across the batch. Every container, individually, with the file available afterwards. When a customer comes back months later about one specific drum, that is the answer.
Weighing is legal-for-trade: the weighing conveyors carry approvals under OIML R61 and the Measuring Instruments Directive (MID, Annex MI-006), with CE-M marking.
The less there is, the less there is to clean and account for
This is where filling by weight stops being a technical preference and becomes a documentation problem.
A weight filler needs no intermediate product tank. The nozzle connects directly to your pipe. A volumetric machine cannot do that: a flowmeter or a mass meter needs steady pressure and flow to read reliably, so the machine carries a tank, the pipework that feeds it and a three-way valve.
Every one of those is a product-contact surface — one more thing to clean between batches, and one more thing your cleaning procedure has to cover and your records have to account for.
With our machines, the product-contact path is the nozzle. Why we fill by weight and never by volume.
Add to that a filling unit with no dead spots where product can sit between batches, flushing with product recovery, CIP cleaning in place where the process requires it, and a nozzle that can be swapped without tools in minutes — or dedicated permanently to one product and never shared with anything else. See how nozzles are cleaned.
What we supply with the machine, and what stays yours
Being precise about this is more useful than a page of adjectives.
What comes from us:
- Material certificates for the parts in contact with the product — stainless steel certification, surface finish certification, and FDA certification where it applies. These are routine on our food and fine chemical projects, not a special request.
- Calibration certificates for the weighing instruments.
- FAT — factory acceptance test, run in our own workshop before the machine ships.
- SAT — site acceptance test, run at your plant after installation.
- The declaration of conformity, the marking, and the risk assessment carried out on the configuration actually supplied.
What stays with you: the validation protocols. Your procedures, your product, your batches — and in our experience customers in this sector want it that way, because the protocol has to fit the rest of their quality system and not ours.
Our FAT and SAT reports are the documented evidence that most customers build their installation and operational qualification on.
Creams, gels and emulsions
A good part of the cosmetic side of this group is not a liquid in any useful sense. Creams, gels, emulsions and thick lotions do not pour, they do not level, and they carry air in if you let them fall.
They are filled the way grease is filled: the nozzle goes to the bottom of the container and rises with the product, staying just above the level as it comes up. No free fall, no entrained air, and the weight on the scale is product rather than bubbles. The full explanation, with grease as the example, is on our Products page.
What changes between a thin lotion and a thick cream is the nozzle diameter, the filling speed and how the product is pushed — and the machine controls your pump and your valve to suit each one, with the parameters stored as a recipe.
Materials, and a clean container
AISI 316L as standard for the wetted parts, and more than eighty nozzle combinations in other materials where the product calls for them.
Anti-drip nozzle with positive closing, so a viscous product does not string onto the thread. Here that is not only tidiness: a smeared container is one that cannot be labelled properly and that a customer will photograph.
Containers
From one litre to 1,500:
- Jerrycans and canisters, for actives, intermediates and additives in small volumes
- Pails and buckets, the usual format for creams, gels and bulk going to a co-packer
- Drums and barrels, steel and plastic
- IBCs and totes, for bulk supply between manufacturers
Which machine fits your line
Any AiCROV machine can fill these products. What decides which one you need is not what you fill — it is how many containers per hour you have to produce, in what format, and how much of the operation you want automated. Every container format, from a one-litre canister to a 1,500-litre IBC, has machines across the whole range, from semi-automatic to fully automatic.
What the product decides is everything inside the filling unit: whether it is filled by immersion or under the bunghole, the materials in contact with it, and how the nozzle itself is driven — push or pull, two-stage coarse and fine opening or proportional, and whether the process needs flow control and continuous pressure.
That is why our first step is a conversation and not a quotation. Tell us your output, your containers and your product, and the configuration follows.
LSG — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for jerrycans and small containers
Semi-automatic weigh filling machine for jerrycans and small containers. No installation: connect power, air and product, and it is ready to fill.
LSB — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for drums
Semi-automatic drum filling machine for 30 to 250 litres: it weighs every drum as it fills, comes preconfigured and is simple to run.
LSC — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for IBCs
For plants that only fill IBCs (totes): quick to set up and configure, and available in an explosion proof version.
SP1 — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for containers on a pallet
Semi-automatic weigh filling of jerrycans, drums and IBCs on a pallet: the operator positions the nozzle and the machine fills to the net weight.
SP2 — semi-automatic filling line for containers on a pallet, with conveyors
Semi-automatic filling of drums and IBCs on a pallet, from 20 to 1,500 litres, by weight, on a preconfigured machine.
SP25 — weigh filling machine with motorised nozzle positioning
This is the machine in the range where the operator stops moving the head by hand. Travel in X, in…
SP3 — automatic filling machine for drums and IBCs on a pallet
With the Robot Filler, this is the most automated machine we build. The operator does not intervene during the cycle…
Robot Filler — fully automatic robotic filling machine for drums and IBCs
Robotic filling of jerrycans, drums and IBCs on a pallet: 3D vision finds each container, then the robot uncaps, fills, caps and seals.
EL2-B — in-line automatic drum filling machine
Automatic in-line filling of steel and plastic drums from 60 to 250 litres, by weight, with uncapping, capping and sealing stations.
EL2-E — in-line automatic filling machine for jerrycans and small containers
Automatic in-line weigh filling machine for liquid and viscous products in metal or plastic canisters, pails and jerrycans with a rectangular base.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you build vial, ampoule or blister filling lines?
No. We fill bulk containers — pails, drums and IBCs. Finished dosage forms are a different industry with its own machinery builders.
We consider ourselves a pharmaceutical company. Is this the right page?
If your product leaves the plant in drums, pails or IBCs, yes, whatever your company calls itself. The container is what decides whether our machines suit you.
What documentation comes with the machine?
Material certificates for the wetted parts — stainless steel, surface finish and FDA where applicable — calibration certificates for the weighing instruments, declaration of conformity, marking, the risk assessment on the configuration supplied, and the FAT and SAT reports.
Do you provide validation protocols?
No, and customers in this sector normally prefer it that way: the protocol has to fit your quality system. What we provide is the documented FAT and SAT that your qualification is built on.
Do you keep a record of every container?
Yes. Date, time, tare and net weight of each container, in CSV. Individually, not as a batch average.
How much has to be cleaned between products?
The nozzle. A weight filler needs no tank, no feed pipework and no three-way valve, so there is nothing else in contact with the product.
Can a nozzle be dedicated to one product?
Yes. It comes off without tools, and some customers keep one permanently assigned to a product that must never share a path with anything else.
Can you fill creams and gels?
Yes, from the bottom of the container with the nozzle rising with the level, which is what keeps air out of a product that cannot release it afterwards.
Tell us your product, your containers and what your documentation requires.
Get a quotation
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