Sterile packaging of liquid foods has become the most promising packaging technology field, new aseptic packaging products, new aseptic packaging machines, and new packaging materials that have increasingly expanded their application. After China's Huiyuan Juice Group and Dingxin Group introduced the PET bottle aseptic filling technology in 2002, domestic beverage manufacturers paid great attention to this technology. It is understood that at least 16 such lines will be operating in China this year.
Procomac filling system in a completely sealed environment
With the rapid development of the domestic beverage industry, beverage products have evolved from a single glass bottle-crown cap to the easy-to-cover metal cans, paper-plastic composites and the most popular PET bottle packaging. PET bottles are widely used due to their transparency, light weight, good chemical stability, portability, convenience of drinking, and low manufacturing cost. However, the temperature characteristics of the PET material itself affect its use. Although the appearance of heat-resistant PET bottles has increased the filling temperature of products and made pasteurization of products possible, the manufacturing cost has been greatly increased. At the same time, the cooling shrinkage of the product after hot filling also limits the design of the PET container. The development of aseptic filling technology has made up for this deficiency and minimized the loss of color, aroma, taste and nutrient content of the product to meet the taste, nutrition, safety and convenience of drinking that consumers are pursuing.
PET aseptic device
The blended beverage is fed into the UHT, and the homogenized turbid juice or NECTAR must be preheated to 65-70°C before entering the vacuum degassing tank and homogenizer with fragrance recovery. In the degassing tank, due to the effect of vacuum, the air entrained in the product is fully eliminated, and the low-boiling aromatics are captured by the condenser on the top of the degassing tank to return to the product itself, maintaining the original flavor of the product. The homogenous product improves its delicate and smooth texture, preventing product delamination and sedimentation. In the final heating stage of the UHT system, the product is instantaneously increased to the set sterilization temperature, and then maintained for a certain sterilization time. The sterilization temperature and maintenance time of the product depend on factors such as the acidity of the product, nutritional components, the number of original bacteria, and the shelf life of the product. For the low-acid foods with pH>4.5, the sterilization temperature is 135-150°C. 2-5s; for acidic foods with pH < 4.5, the sterilization temperature is 80-110°C for 15-40s. Sterilization conditions are based on the commercial sterility requirements of the product. The product is finally cooled to approximately 30 °C into the filling machine. The UHT system designed and manufactured by SIG Group adopts PLC control to realize automatic adjustment of temperature, liquid level, and vacuum degree. The disinfection of the system before production and the cleaning after production are automatic program operations.
Aseptic filling system
The aseptic filling system is composed of bottle sterilizing, spray rinsing, pouring and capping, cap sterilization, and aseptic room.
The bottle device is sent to the system through the sterile air channel, and the nozzles installed on both sides of the channel can strongly wash the bottleneck and the bottle body with the disinfectant and fully sterilize the outside of the bottle device. The bottle holder is then turned over so that the mouth of the bottle is turned downward, and the pressurized disinfecting liquid is sprayed on the entire inner surface of the bottle holder through the solid conical nozzle, and the spraying time can be adjusted according to the specifications of the bottle holder. Using peracetic acid as a bactericide, it is activated at an appropriate temperature to achieve the best bactericidal effect and the bactericide can be fully recovered. The inner and outer surfaces of the bottle are then rinsed with sterile water and the water is completely drained. The sterilized and cleaned empty bottles are transferred to the filling machine for pouring and capping.
After the bottle enters the aseptic filling system, it is transported by a specially designed card bottleneck device. The filling machine uses a volumetric electronic valve. The filling volume is precisely controlled by the flowmeter and the bottle is not in contact with the filling valve, thus avoiding the possibility of cross-contamination.
The filled bottles are fed into the capping machine, and the caps delivered to the capping machine are pre-sterilized. The caps are transported from the cap silo to a immersion sterilizer by a mechanical elevator and sterilized with peracetic acid solution. The caps of the manager caps are arranged in a single row, conveyed along the closed channel to the capping machine, and rinsed with sterile water to remove remaining Cover the fungicide and finally dry it with sterile air.
PET bottle feeder
The PET bottles supplied to the aseptic filling system can be supplied in two ways: online bottle feeding and tray feeding. When an online bottle is directly connected to an aseptic filling machine, since the blowing process is carried out under high temperature and high pressure, the bacteria no longer exists. In order to prevent the secondary pollution of the container, the cleanliness of the air-sending passage should be Class 100, positive pressure, air sent as air is treated with a high efficiency filter with a filtration efficiency of 99.999%. The total number of bacteria in the bottle should reach 0 CFU/bottle. When trays are used for bottles, the decanted bottles are first fed into a group of pre-sterilization devices so that the total number of bacteria in the bottles can be reduced to the specified target and then sent to the aseptic filling system from the top plate bottle chain.
germ-free room
According to different functions, the aseptic chamber is divided into two different cleanliness grades of 100 and 10,000. Rinsing/filling/capping operations are carried out in a class 100 purification zone with clean air. The air passes through the work surface in a laminar flow from top to bottom. Sterilization of bottles and caps, changing of operators, operation of operators, and control room are Class 10,000 purification zones. The pressure in the 100-class purification zone is 25-30 Pa, and the pressure in the 10,000-class purification zone is 10-15 Pa higher than that in the sterile outdoor environment. The sterile room always maintains positive pressure,
To prevent dirty air from seeping.
The aseptic filling system adopts man-machine interface operation, and the infrared transmission system realizes intelligent automatic control of no bottle, no spray and spray sterilization, and is equipped with real-time monitoring of the entire production line. The attachment of a complete aseptic filling system should also include a sterile tank, a sterilizing liquid preparation system, an aseptic air preparation system, a sterile water preparation, and a sterile nitrogen preparation system.
Linear aseptic filling system
The linear aseptic filling system is used for lower production capacity. Its working method is that the bottle device is transported by the pneumatic gripper to the tunnel sterilizing zone, and a vacuum system makes the sterilizing zone under vacuum, a hydrogen peroxide The evaporator injects hydrogen peroxide vapor into the bottle and decomposes it into primary oxygen to fully sterilize the bottle. Then the second evacuation of the sterilizing zone removes the residual moisture in the bottle. The moisture is hydrogen peroxide. At the time of decomposition, sterile air is finally injected to return the sterilization zone to atmospheric pressure. The bottle goes on to the aseptic zone. Like the usual clean room, the aseptic zone is efficiently filtered and maintained at a positive pressure. The cleanliness level is 100. The product is poured and sealed in the sterile room. This system is suitable for bottlers made of polyester, polyethylene and polypropylene materials, using the principle of gravity filling, measuring with electromagnetic flowmeters, sealing with aluminum foil or traditional plastic bottle caps, filling tea beverages, fruit juices, Milk and milk drinks.
Integrated sterile device
Procomac's latest aseptic device integrates the aseptic processing line with the rest of the production line, which significantly reduces scrap and optimizes end-to-end production operations. This new concept, called SafeAseptic, integrates structural components and services to ensure a high degree of product cleanliness and the versatility of aseptic filling lines.
SafeAseptic uses microbiological isolation to ensure sterility without the need for a clean room, providing security. With this system, product contamination can be avoided even if the operator of the production line has an operational error.
Another advantage of the SafeAseptic system is its filling flexibility. At present, Procomac machines are highly flexible and a single production line is suitable for the production of various products: gas-free and carbonated drinks, low-acid and high-acid beverages.
SafeAseptic has a repetitive control in which the injection pressure during sterilisation is checked once during the conversion of each sterilizing carousel and the sensor automatically sets the operating parameters for each different nozzle to compensate for the differences in the nozzles. The bottle does not come into contact with the nozzle and is sterilized with steam throughout the process. Each workstation is equipped with a pair of intervention gloves and intervention kits to control the work of the isolation room without affecting the aseptic environment and reduce the operator's chance of polluting the environment.
After the whole machine is installed, you can start trial operation. The trial run was carried out in two steps, namely: microbiological tests and mechanical tests.
The purpose of the first test is to ensure the microbiological safety of the production line. For high-acid beverages, samples of 100,000 bottles will be tested and Procomac guarantees that the defective rate will not exceed 1/100,000. For low-acid beverages, sample tests were conducted on 30,000 bottles filled with the medium, and Procomac guaranteed that the defective rate was no more than 1/10,000.
After microbiological testing, commercial production can begin. The purpose of the mechanical test is to demonstrate the production capacity of the production line during the 8-hour/shift operation. In addition to production capacity, mechanical tests also verify the quality parameters of the production line. This refers to the sterilized and rinsed bottles, the consistency of the amount of filling, the maximum concentration of peroxide, and the cap defect rate, the repeatability of the switch torque and so on.
China Huiyuan Group purchased two sets of Procomac aseptic filling lines in 2001 and 2002 respectively. In order to expand production capacity, the company plans to introduce two other Procomac production lines, one of which will produce a 0.5-liter PET bottle at a production speed of 40,000 bph for high-acid products; the other will produce a 1.5-liter PET bottle at a production speed of 16,000 bph. .
Aseptic processing of closures
As microbiologically-sensitive beverage manufacturers increasingly demand aseptic processing in their bottling process, their demand for capping device aseptic production is also increasing, with special attention being paid to the capping process. Avoid bacteria, viscose entrapment and product contamination.
The key lies in the transfer process of bottles and caps. Especially when the unsealed bottles are transported between the discharge star of the filler and the capping machine, the products are easily contaminated on the way. From the washing tank to the cover chute, as well as on the way to picking the table and the bottle mouth, the bottle cover is susceptible to contamination. At the same time, the accumulation of water on the sorting table or on the closure turntable can also cause pollution.
Bottle filling machines, in particular capping machines, should implement strict specifications to ensure sterile packaging in a clean room environment.
In the capper optimisation design, there are few parts above the bottle mouth, reducing or eliminating the possibility of bacteria invading from the upper mechanical parts. Krones has introduced a new solution with a cold, sterile capping method with the cam supports and caps underneath the bottleneck guides. The cover and cover cone are connected by a lateral device. The cover is integrated in the inner ring below the bottleneck guide. The only device above the bottleneck rail is a washable cone, including a spring member and an ejector spring. The picking table is fixed on the column to form an open, washable structure that prevents the upper part from dropping. All parts do not require lubrication and maintenance.
This new program is planned to be produced in three models: In the purely mechanical model, the lagging coupling is pushed through the centrally located ball bearing ring, using a simple drive to handle caps with the same number of threads. When using a driven ball bearing ring, multiple threaded bottle caps can be operated. In the third solution using a servo motor to control the capping device, the control panel can be used to set and change the tightening torque, capping speed, and capping characteristics.
Aseptic filling technology is the development trend of liquid food packaging. Aseptic filling technology must strictly monitor every influential parameter value, which puts higher requirements on management. Although the initial investment in aseptic filling is large, these investments can be saved from the package