Monitoring hygiene in food manufacturing

Many manufacturers in the food industry use the same filling station for a range of different products. Because of  the  high  hygienic  standards  in  the  food  production  lines, regular  cleaning intervals are necessary as well. This Cleaning In Place (CIP) is conducted with high tempered water and steam, sometimes combined with additional detergents (e.g. NaOH).

Distinction of fluids to avoid contamination

Interfacing is the separation of different fluids, applied especially in the food industry. When the Cleaning In Place (CIP) is carried out, it is essential to separate the cleaning solution from the actual product in order to avoid contamination. Schmidt + Haensch inline process refractometers provide you with the exact setting points to trigger automatically the valves using the signal output of the instrument. Using these features, you not only eliminate contamination – you can also optimize the recycling of the cleaning fluid. The instrument operator must decide  when  the  specific  product  in  the pipeline is without residue and identify the interface to the next product visually,  normally  just  through  color  variation.  After each  batch, or after CIP  cleaning,  the  actual  interface  between  water  and  product  or  two separate products has to be detected. Due to human error, a huge amount of product gets wasted in this way. By using a real-time Refractive Index (RI) measurement instrument from the Schmidt-Haensch iPR series you can monitor and control all these processes. Such a process refractometer from Schmidt + Haensch allows you to switch products without the need for a shutdown. It provides a reliable measuring value which represents the exact interface of the fluids within the pipeline and helps minimize the amount of waste.