PETpla.net Insider 03 / 2018

BOTTLING / FILLING PET planet Insider Vol. 19 No. 03/18 www.petpla.net 34 A modular rotary machine concept for the hygienic filling of sensitive beverages Hygiene customised A new modular system with rotary machines for hygienic fill- ing gives producers of sensitive beverages the exact degree of safety they need. Customised to suit their respective hygiene requirements, reliable and economical systems can be configured which prove convincing in practice. Filling Special The new rotary filler blocks are precisely tailored to suit hygiene requirements with standardised mod- ules which can be easily configured. Compared to the classic means of preserving food and beverages, asep- tic filling is a gentle alternative which does not have a detrimental effect on either the product taste or vitamin content. It is thus with good reason that this method has vastly increased in importance over the last ten years. As one of the founders of this tech- nology KHS is therefore one of the specialist in the filling of sensitive beverages such as milk, mixed milk drinks and juice. Modular and tailored to requirements The company has now presented a new development which has a posi- tive impact on the company’s portfolio: a concept which satisfies all hygiene specifications and required produc- tion capacities. The system’s most important classification criteria are the hygiene categorisation classes specified by the German Engineer- ing Association, VDMA. A distinction is made between the following three categories for the filling of sensitive products:  Class III (ultraclean filling): includes low-germ filling products such as fresh juice and slightly carbonated spritzers; depending on the product specifications, natural and drink- able yogurt with a shelf life of less than 14 days.  Class IV (extended shelf life): pertains to dairy products in the cold chain, such as ESL milk with a shelf life of 28 days, natural and drinkable yogurt, cold-filled smoothies and iced tea and fruit juices which have to be filled with- out the risk of recontamination.  Class V (aseptic filling): includes germ-free products to be filled, such as UHT milk and cream which uncooled have a shelf life of sev- eral months, and non-carbonated water, juice beverages and near- water beverages. For each of these hygiene classes the new KHS concept has its own machine engineering adaptations in the form of standardised modules. In the future the filler can be configured depending on which hygiene class a bottler’s products fall under and pre- cisely tailored to suit the exact speci- fications of each and every customer. Adjusted to the producer’s capacity requirements, the KHS concept can cater for outputs ranging from 24,000 to 54,000bph. The system offers plenty of scope as regards the bottle size, too; the combination of container volume and output capacity can be configured for 500ml, 1.0l and 1.5l. Based on its many years of experi- ence KHS has opted for a method of preform, bottle and cap sterilisation which is considerably easier to oper- ate than the aseptic blow moulder setup. “Keeping a rapidly rotating blow moulder permanently sterile is a very complex challenge - one without any notable benefit,”states Thomas Niehr, head of Aseptic Filling Technol- ogy at KHS. “A lot of time and effort is involved in format changeovers to prevent the sterile blow moulder from being recontaminated. This makes great demands of the operator and the machine environment and poses a high risk of serious errors.” In the rotary machine range a future alter- native to the proven bottle sterilisa- tion system on the Innosept Asbofill ASR is proffered by the new Innosept Asbofill ASR 2Step. This differs from the classic version that it integrates new, space-saving H 2 O 2 systems on the transfer stars between the stretch blow moulder and filler. This reduced form of bottle sterilisation is made possible by the preforms being sterilised at the infeed to the stretch blow moulder. On the Innosept Asbofill ASR 2Step there is thus no need for a sterilisation carousel and the drying module can be made much smaller. Both features result in a system which is much neater and more compact.