Going from hot to cold – controlled bottle cooling
The consumer wants fresh juice on the table. So bottle hygiene is the main priority when bottling. One of China's largest food producers uses measuring and control technology from ProMinent.
Reliable control of water parameters
Uni-President Enterprises Corp. is the largest fruit juice manufacturer in China and is based in the sea port of Tainan, the fifth largest city in Taiwan. This year the company, which employs more than 5,000 members of staff, celebrates its 50th anniversary. Other than fruit juice, the company produces milk, noodles, bread, health foods and other foodstuffs and markets them around the globe.
When expanding its bottling facility, the food company needed reliable measuring and control technology because the fruit juice bottles reach a temperature of between 70-80º C during the bottling process. They then have to be cooled back down to ambient temperature and their surfaces disinfected. Thanks to long-standing business relations, tried and tested quality products from ProMinent were chosen for the job of monitoring the required water parameters.
Key data
- Reliable monitoring and control of water parameters for disinfecting and cooling bottles using a control circuit
- Continuous measurement of chlorine while also recording pH
- Use of powerful sensors in contaminated water, at high temperatures of up to 80° C and in pH ranges of up to 9.5 pH
Intelligent sensors for challenging tasks
After bottling the fruit juice, the bottles pass through a two-stage system. In the first stage the bottles are sprayed with a cooling and disinfection solution at 45º C and in the second stage they are sprayed again with the same solution at 32º C. The used cooling and disinfection solution is collected and fed to a storage tank, where it is intensified with chlorine for using again.
To comply with the required water parameters, the following ProMinent products are used in this process: two controllers dialog DACa , each with one channel for measuring chlorine and one channel for recording pH; temperature-compensated chlorine sensors of the type DULCOTEST® CBR1-mA for use in contaminated water and at high pH levels of up to 9.5 pH; pH sensors of the type PHER-112 SE for use at high temperatures of up to 80° C and pressures of up to 6 bar and appropriate pumps for metering chlorine.
Cooled bottles, clean bottles
Using ProMinent's two-channel controller dialog DACa and robust sensors, optimum bottle disinfection and cooling is ensured at all times. Uni-President Enterprises Corp. now uses 70 of these measuring and control systems in its bottling facility. Connection to a PLC (programmable logic controller) also enables central monitoring from the control room. All in all, a clean and effective solution!
- Optimum bottle disinfection and cooling
- Reliable control of chlorine concentration
- Continuous monitoring and correction of the pH
- Easy to install and integrate in existing systems