PETpla.net Insider 11 / 2016

PACKAGING 34 PET planet Insider Vol. 17 No. 11/16 www.petpla.net onto pallets by a Modulpal in each line. Downstream, both lines share a stretch wrapper, in which the pallets’ loads are stabilised for transport. In order to ensure optimum protection for its kit, Leão purchases lubricants from KIC Krones. Syrup kitchen Krones was also responsible for the concept and installation of the entire syrup kitchen, which has been accommodated on two floors: the ground floor houses the product formulation system where suction pipe end pieces extract the tea con- centrates from the drums and place them in mixing tanks. The kit can also process powders. On the same level, two product tanks are accommo- dated for each of the two lines, which through apertures in the ceiling rise up to the floor above. It is on this top level that the two VarioFlash H flash pasteurisers with shell-and-tube heat exchangers, and the two Contiflow two-component mixers have likewise been erected. Installation work for the lines and the process section began in mid- 2013, and the lines had already been acceptance-tested in September. Water treatment In parallel with the installation work, Leão also had to substantially upgrade the infrastructure in the plant, and to revamp some of the utilities like water supply and treatment, electricity, super- heated steam and pressure. Leão equipped its wastewater treatment pro- cess with a reverse-osmosis system, so that the treated wastewater can be re-used in the plant as process water. This is because in Brazil, too, water consumption is an increasingly exigent focus. Rather like in California, suffer- ing from an almost total drought, the metropolis of São Paulo, for example, with its 21 million people, has for some years now found water scarce, so that the city council has had to optimise consumption per household: using too much is punishable by a fine. Sustain- able utilisation of water is thus a man- datory principle for Leão. “The frequent product change-overs in the bottling lines, particularly, consume a bit more water for cleaning,” explains Dirk Schneider. Usually a product is run for not more than 15 hours at a time before a product change-over is scheduled – once or twice a day. This is a challenge faced by almost every beverage producer,” explains Dirk Schneider. www.krones.com Dressed and packed A Linadry dries the containers, which are then dressed in full-body sleeves by the two DecoBloc label- lers, whose technology enables them to be dressed in either sleeves or wrap-around labels. Leão is at present using the machines solely for the sleeve technology, but there is also an option for linking up stations of the Contiroll HS for wrap-around labelling. The first PET line installed by Krones in 2010 likewise already incorporates a DecoBloc. Once the PET containers have been dressed in sleeves, these are snugly shrink-fitted to the con- tainer’s shape in a Shrinkmat shrink tunnel, thus constituting an attractive sales package amenable to multiple design variants. A specially dimen- sioned Checkmat FM-G then uses a 360-degree monitoring unit to inspect the containers for correct positioning of the sleeves. After that, two Variopac Pro packers installed in parallel group the bottles into sixpacks, which are arranged in the appropriate layer pat- tern by a Robobox grouping system. The finished layers are then stacked Dirk Schneider, Industrial Director at Leão Alimentos e Bebidas The two lines are, with the exception of the fillers, almost identical. They each begin with a Contiform Bloc, compris- ing a heatset Contiform H blow-moulder and a filler. Reel change at the DecoBloc labeller The shrink-packs are arranged in the appropriate layer pattern by a Robobox grouping system.