Industry focus Food & beverage

Bottle dryer halves energy costs

Leeds-based soft drink manufacturer, Britvic, aims to become a world leader in its field by 2012 and it has taken one step in attaining this goal with the installation of a bottle drying system from Air Control Industries

bottles. The situation was made worse by the fact the units were not easy to clean. These two units have now been replaced by a single ‘LNL’ unit from Air Control Industries (ACI). The LNL unit features ACI’s JetPlate

plenum air delivery system. This system enables air to be delivered close to the bottles, while at the same time acting as guide rails to promote bottle stability during travel through the LNL, thereby helping to maximise throughput. The LNL is a totally enclosed stain-

A single bottle drying unit from Air Control Industries helped minimise downtime, maximise production output and cut energy consumption for soft drink

manufacturer Britvic

minimise downtime to maximise pro- duction output while also reducing energy consumption. Previously, there were two identical drying units installed in series on the 36,000 bottles/hr line in order to dry

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n order to achieve its goal, Britvic has to evaluate every stage of the production process and the new bottle drying system is helping to

the bottles to ensure effective label adhesion. As well as not fulfilling this requirement effectively, the machines did not incorporate bottle guide rails so there was a recurrent problem of bottles falling over causing line stop- pages, lost production and product waste. These ‘qualities’ resulted in moisture build-up inside the bottle dryers and product deposits on the

less steel unit with polycarbonate inspection windows. The blower unit is mounted on top of the bottle dryer enclosure to permit the use of adjustable mounting legs to facilitate installation, even as a retrofit, and for easy all round cleaning. This version of ACI’s LNL with

JetPlates is also able to handle all the different bottle sizes handled at the Leeds Britvic plant, from the 125ml size for mixers up to the 750ml bottle for J2O, without requiring adjustment. With this installation, all these ben- efits are complemented by significant energy savings. This is because one blower-powered unit is replacing two, halving energy costs. “The previous system was a night-

Air Control Industries T: 0845 5000 501 www.aircontrol industries.com Enter 202

mare,” said Mick Wigham, engineering team leader. “Production hold-ups, ineffective drying, complicated set-up and fiddly to clean design, combined to undermine efficiency. In contrast, the ACI bottle dryer enables us max- imise throughput with no issues relat- ing to the bottle drying function and it’s also easy to switch product runs.”

Sensors allow mineral water bottler to meet hygiene needs

stainless steel opto-electronic sensors in its glass bottle line to meet its hygiene requirements in wet areas. The region around Ensingen overlies two different sources of

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mineral water, which enables the mineral water bottler to draw from several different mineral water wells. One of the mineral water springs is within the company’s grounds. In addition to bottled mineral water, the spring water is also used

in popular, low-calorie sport drinks and juice spritzers. To serve this demand the company has two PET bottling plants

and one glass bottling plant, serving southern Germany. Quality assurance and quality control is of prime importance to

Ensinger, with the company’s analytic laboratory examining each and every production batch. Special care is also given to the hygienic design of the bottling

plants, as well as the normal demands for high efficiency and avail- ability. These hygiene requirements in the wet areas, led Ensinger to select Leuze electronic’s 55 series stainless-steel opto-electronic

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nsinger Mineral-Heilquellen GmbH in the Esingen area near Stuttgart, Germany has chosen Leuze electronic’s 55 series

sensors in its glass bottle line. The used bottles, which are reused up to 50 times, are intensively cleaned and sanitised before being discharged via a conveyor belt through a bottle inspection system. The Leuze sensors are mounted on this conveyor belt and being

retro-reflective can detect a wide range of bottle types, ensuring economical control of the bottle transport system. The glass bottle line has a capacity of up to 45,000 bottles per

hour, with the machines, the conveyor belts and the sensors sub- jected to intense cleaning and disinfection. In order to withstand the aggressive cleaning agents and long application times, the sensors are made of a high-quality V4A stainless steel (316L). The optics and operational controls are developed from non-diffusive and chemically resistant materials. In addition to protection classes IP67 and IP69K as well as the ECOLAB certification, the 55 series also satisfies the CleanProof+ standard defined by Leuze electronic. A video about 55 series sensors is available on the new video

section of the Leuze electronic website.

Leuze electronic www.leuze.co.uk

T: 01480 408 500 Enter 203

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