INDUSTRY
requirement. For example, chemical with more chelating agent (to help mineral soil removal) is required for high heat-treated surfaces, while for cold surfaces chemicals with more emulsification capacity are required. There may be one or multiple or a combination of criteria for selecting a formulated chemical. The criteria may include faster cleaning with savings in water and energy, cleaning and disinfection in one single stage, etc. In dairy industry, hygiene of CIP plays a very important role. There are various steps involved in a normal CIP-hygiene cycle, starting from pre-rinse to final disinfection. New CIP cycles in dairy industry may involve the following steps: • Pre-rinse • Detergent cycle • Rinse • Disinfectant cycle • Potable water rinse Or it may take the following steps too: • Pre-rinse • Detergent-cum-disinfectant cycle • Final rinse
Soil and Substance Cleaning and disinf ection chemistry that is applied depends on the soils present. In dairies, when the soil is not heat-treated and the viscosity of the product
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is fairly low, acidic cleaning and disinfection can be used. This technology uses emulsification as cleaning mechanism and does surface active disinfection. The disinfection property is not lost during its use, thus this can be reclaimed and reused after topping up to the required strength. The benefits of this technology include savings in water, less energ y consumption and better safety, as this chemical works on lower temperature than traditional disinfection temperature. For heat-treated equipment, major part of the soil comprise of minerals and denaturised proteins, which is not possible to remove with alkali only. Acidic chemicals are used in the removal of this difficult to clean soil. This acidic stage can be replaced with additive package to caustic, which will then eliminate or reduce the need of acidic stage. Minerals are removed by sequestration at high pH. The total impact of this would be saving time, alkali, water and energy with indirect benefits of ETP load reduction and improved productivity. This technology can be applied to viscous, high fat or high protein containing non-heat treated soils also.
Advancements and Innovations Dairy industry disinfection has also advanced to a higher level. The traditional method of dairy disinfection uses live steam or hot water at 85 degree centigrade, for at least 30 minutes. Practically this method takes one hour for complete disinfection. In this process, 10-20 minutes are required for bringing the temperature of equipment surface to 85 degree centigrade, and another 10-20 minutes are required for hot water disinfection to cool, which is necessary before the beginning of the
next production cycle. The advanced technology uses peracetic acid based disinfectant, which can be used at ambient temperature and requires very less contact time of say 5-15 minutes. It generally does not require any rinsing, thus maintaining the sterility of the system. Also, if required, the temperature of the plant during disinfection can be maintained at the temperature of the production. Thus there would be no need of cooling or heating the system. This technology is applicable to both heated and non-heated soils. For non-heated soils, an acidic detergent-cum-disinfectant can be used, which in turn can save water, time and energy. This process needs lesser temperature than traditional disinfection and gives simultaneous cleaning and disinfection. These innovations in dairy equipment disinfection do save time, water and energy, thereby paving the way towards improved operational excellence. Another development in the dair y industr y cleaning is the cleaning of vertical surfaces, which is applicable to tank exteriors, evaporator calendria, etc. Vertical surfaces are difficult to clean, as the detergent applied flows down due to gravity and does not provide sufficient contact time between detergent and the soil. But thankfully, new products and methods are available to improve the retention time of the cleansing chemical. These chemicals need to be applied using foam cleaning machine. The additional cling time will yield better cleaning results while undertaking vertical cleaning, as contact time will increase thereby reducing the scope of repeat applications, w h e r e v e r needed. This leads to savings in time and water, and hence, eventually costs. The author is the Marketing Manager, F&B, Diversey India Pvt. Ltd.
July-Aug ’11