Sterilising Bottling Machines
Bottling machines fill bottles with beverages from large tanks. The process is designed to be fast, and the bottles are expected to be filled with the same amount of liquid. For the most part, these machines run constantly 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The bottles are guided to the taps by a conveyor belt system and filled. Machine downtime must be minimised.
As these liquids are foodstuffs, strict requirements must be met, including sterilising the machine. A bottling machine’s taps are cleaned multiple times per day. The taps are flushed with a sterilising agent at a certain pressure to temperature ratio for 20 minutes to kill any bacteria.
KELLER Pressure’s customised pressure transmitters 25Zio monitor the temperature and pressure of the sterilising agent. If the pressure or temperature is not within the specified tolerances, sterilisation is not guaranteed. An alarm will be triggered, and the flushing process will be repeated.
The components of machines used for the food industry need to fulfil specific requirements, and KELLER Pressure’s Zio line pressure transmitters are no exception. The flush diaphragm on the 25Zio allows for easy cleaning. No food residue sticks to the thread as it does not come into contact with the medium. O-rings with approval for the food industry are used to seal the transmitter, while the sensors are filled with oil that does not pose a risk to human health. If the diaphragm bursts and oil gets into the liquid that the bottles are being filled with, it would still be safe to consume.
The 25Y series previously used an integrated temperature sensor for this purpose, which required two input modules and two controllers. The Zio line renders this unnecessary as it is equipped with an IO-Link interface. One 25Zio monitors each filling tap, and the measurement data are transmitted by cable to an IO-Link master and from there to a controller.
IO-Link offers many additional advantages, including:
- Interference-free transmission
- Robust communication system
- Ability to be integrated into existing systems
- Possibility of connecting up other existing interfaces via gateways
- Simple communication protocol
- Harmonisation and simplification of intelligent networks
- Automatic verification of the sensor ID
