Example of the use of VIXELL in international transportation

Case 1. International transportation from Europe to Japan (2 ℃ ～8 ℃ range)

・ Purpose: Actual transportation test assuming imported investigational drugs from Switzerland to Japan

・ Period:  15th December, 2020 to 4th January, 2021

・ Transportation route: Switzerland (Zurich) → Qatar (Doha) → Japan (Kansai International Airport) → Shiga (Panasonic)

・ Transportation temperature range 2 ° C to 8 ° C

・ Equipment used: VIXELL Type-S (AE-V06GXR) + Thermal storage unit (AE-V06C5R)

Assuming general international transportation from Europe to Japan, we installed a mock pharmaceutical product and a logger with various sensors inside the VIXELL, which was prepared by precooling in a warehouse of a partner company in Switzerland, and conducted transportation experiments using the same air route as the actual transportation of pharmaceutical products.
In conventional constant temperature transportation of pharmaceutical products, the heat insulation performance of the cool box is poor and the temperature retention time is short, so it is necessary to fully replenish the cold insulator at the airport of departure and to reload the cold insulator at the airport of Japan in the destination country.

 In the actual international transportation scene, it is often required to maintain the temperature for about 5 to 7 days, but it may exceed the planned number of days due to transshipment troubles at transit points and customs clearance troubles at the destination airport. In this experiment, we did not open the box even after arriving at the destination (Shiga Prefecture), and experimented how much the temperature could be maintained with only the first cold insulator.

As described above, this transportation experiment demonstrated that VIXELL can realize long-term cooling not only in the temperature cycle test (* see the report), which was conducted previously to evaluate the effect of external environment such as ISTA 7D, but also in the actual constant temperature transportation of pharmaceutical products.

Inside of VIXELL at the time of transportation test

In this experiment, a measurement unit with logging function (temperature, position information, impact, illuminance, barometric pressure) was installed for international cargo tracking. The temperature is measured at three locations, inside and outside the VIXELL.

VIXELL packaging during shipping

VIXELL type-S and type-L can load 18 boxes and 12 boxes on 110 cm square pallets, respectively.

Transportation test

From Switzerland to Japan (Panasonic's business site in Kusatsu City, Shiga Prefecture), we conducted a transportation test using VIXELL in the same environment as actual  pharmaceutical products transportation.
As a result, VIXELL was able to maintain its internal temperature within the controlled temperature range of 2 °C to 8 °C for 468 hours (more than 19 days) after it departed from Switzerland (15th December PM 3: 00), after customs clearance at the airport in Japan (23rd December), and was left as it was in the office of Panasonic.
It was shown that VIXELL has sufficient cooling performance even if it is assumed that the transportation from Europe to Japan is usually about one week.

Vacuum inspection at the time of return

The returned VIXELL is inspected every time using a special inspection unit.
In the present transportation experiment, a large impact occurred twice during transportation (15th December and 19th December), but there was no problem in the insulation performance (vacuum degree of vacuum insulation material) of VIXELL as a result of inspection.
In this way, VIXELL is not only excellent in durability, but also its insulation performance (vacuum degree) is checked before and after shipping.
Therefore, users who use VIXELL next time will be able to use the box with the insulation performance confirmed beforehand, so they can use it without worries.