EP3374100B1 - Device and method for cleaning of a plant part of a beverage filling plant - Google Patents

Description

technical field

The present invention relates to a device for cleaning a part of a beverage bottling plant to be cleaned, for example a filler area to be cleaned and/or a capping area in a beverage bottling plant.

State of the art

In beverage bottling plants, it is known to periodically clean parts of the plant that are to be cleaned, for example the filler, the capper and/or the transport devices located between them. Various cleaning devices and cleaning methods are known for cleaning the system parts or the entire filling system, with a rough distinction being made between external cleaning and internal cleaning of the system parts.

With external cleaning, the external surfaces of the system parts to be cleaned are cleaned by applying cleaning media via spray nozzles or flushing nozzles. This external cleaning usually also includes rinsing the inner walls of a housing of the beverage bottling plant using the respective cleaning media.

During internal cleaning, all product-touched paths, i.e. in particular the filling product lines and other media lines within the beverage bottling plant, are cleaned. For this purpose, the cleaning media flows through the system parts to be cleaned, in particular the respective filling product paths, and cleaning is achieved in this way. In the closed systems of the beverage bottling plant, for example the valve manifold, the media supply and the other media lines, a so-called cleaning-in-place cleaning (CIP cleaning) is usually carried out, which is carried out without the dismantling of system parts inside the production system can.

The interior cleaning and the exterior cleaning can be carried out simultaneously or sequentially. A sequence of different cleaning media is usually used in order to achieve the desired cleaning effect.

Cleaning media is understood here to mean all media that are used during the cleaning process. The cleaning media are used, for example, in the following steps during the cleaning process: pre-rinsing with clear water, cleaning with lye, intermediate rinsing with clear water, cleaning with acid, rinsing with hot water, sterilization with superheated steam. Clear water, hot water, acid, lye and superheated steam are therefore at least regarded as cleaning media.

The provision and preparation of the respective cleaning media used is of great importance. In particular, it is essential for a complete and hygienically perfect cleaning of the system components to provide the respective cleaning media with the intended concentration of cleaning agents and at the prescribed temperature.

Different methods are known for the provision or processing of the respective cleaning media. In particular, so-called lost cleaning and stack cleaning must be compared with one another. In lost cleaning, the respective cleaning medium is brought into the part of the plant to be cleaned and then either discarded and drained directly from the outlet of the respective part of the plant, or discarded and drained after recycling during a single cleaning phase. In the case of lost cleaning, the cleaning media are freshly provided and prepared for each cleaning phase.

In stack cleaning, on the other hand, the respective cleaning media, such as fresh water, acid or alkali, are temporarily stored in stacking tanks between the individual cleaning cycles, used for the respective cleaning phase, then drained from the system component’s outlet and then fed back to the respective stacking tank. Before being used again or also during the respective cleaning phase, the respective cleaning medium is processed, for example by adding fresh water and cleaning concentrate and/or by filtering.

Combined solutions are also known in which some of the cleaning media are temporarily stacked, while other cleaning media are discarded after a single use or after use in the circuit after the respective cleaning cycle has been completed.

When cleaning, it is important that after cleaning the system parts to be cleaned with alkali and/or acid, the respective treated system parts are rinsed completely free of chemicals by rinsing with fresh water in order to prevent that in the subsequent filling operation no components of the cleaning chemicals get into reach the filling product. Furthermore, it can be advantageous for the system areas to dry quickly, either to enable a subsequent further sterilization step, for example in aseptic systems, or at least to be able to start production again quickly. For this purpose it is desirable that the rinsing water and in particular the rinsing water is applied to the surfaces as hot as possible in order to enable rapid evaporation of the water on the system parts heated in this way. For example, a subsequent dry sterilization with vaporized hydrogen peroxide can then also be started faster.

It is known to provide a heat exchanger for heating the respective cleaning medium and in particular the rinsing water for intermediate rinsing or for rinsing the respective surfaces of the system part to be cleaned, the required amount of heat being provided to the heat exchanger via process steam or process hot water.

In order to heat cold process water using steam or hot water in a heat exchanger and to provide a large amount of water for quick rinsing of the system parts to be cleaned, large amounts of superheated steam or hot water are required in the short term. Accordingly, in the known systems, there is a high demand for steam for the short period of cleaning and in particular for the hot rinsing. The rapid heating also results in high material stress in the heat exchanger. Furthermore, the regulation of the target temperature must also be very precise in order to avoid introducing cold water into the areas of the plant that have already been cleaned, in order to prevent renewed microbiological contamination.

In the known systems, in order to prevent the high steam requirement for the process step of rinsing from going beyond the capacity limit of the available steam network, large-scale steam generators are usually kept available.

the DE 10 2013 000 522 A1 describes a process and a system for treating KEGs. the CN 204404866 U and JP 2009-189905 A describe systems for using the residual heat of the waste water from a cleaning device.

Presentation of the invention

Proceeding from the known state of the art, it is therefore an object of the present invention to make the existing devices for cleaning beverage bottling plants more efficient.

This object is achieved by a device having the features of claim 1. Advantageous developments result from the dependent claims.

Accordingly, a device for cleaning a part of the plant to be cleaned in a beverage bottling plant is proposed, comprising a media feed for supplying a cleaning medium to the part of the plant to be cleaned, and a media return for removing the used cleaning medium from the part of the plant to be cleaned, so that the cleaning medium can be circulated is, wherein a heater for heating the cleaning medium is provided in the medium flow. According to the invention, a recuperator is provided for transferring thermal energy from the cleaning medium discharged via the medium return to the cleaning medium to be supplied to the heater.

Because, in addition to the heater for heating the cleaning medium in the medium flow, a recuperator is provided, by means of which at least part of the thermal energy that is still in the cleaning medium used, which has already passed through the system part, is removed via the medium return from the system part to be cleaned , is present, the cleaning medium is transferred in the media flow, the required heating energy of the heater can be reduced. This is particularly the case when, for example, after the use of chemicals, rinsing with lost cleaning is carried out for rinsing or rinsing the parts of the plant to be cleaned in such a way that the water used is discarded after it has passed through the part of the plant to be cleaned once. In this case it is possible by means of the recuperator, which is already in the used and finally discarded cleaning medium introduced thermal energy to transfer substantially to the freshly supplied cleaning medium. Accordingly, the required heat output of the heater can be reduced and the heater and/or its energy supply can also be dimensioned to be smaller overall.

On the one hand, there is an overall saving in heating energy, since a significant part of the energy used for heating is reused. On the other hand, it is possible to reduce the maximum energy requirement, for example for heating the rinse water. If the heating energy is supplied via steam, this also results in the possibility of having smaller dimensions for a steam generator in the beverage bottling plant.

At the same time, this also results in a high level of hygienic safety, since it can be efficiently ensured that the rinsing water at least reaches the specified target temperature without, for example, a steam network of the beverage bottling plant reaching its performance limit.

Furthermore, it can be achieved that newly supplied cleaning medium is preheated by means of the recuperator, so that the material stress within the heater and within the recuperator is not so high, since the temperature differences or temperature gradients to be processed are caused by the two-stage heating process, namely initially via the recuperator and then by means of heating, are not so strong.

As a further advantage, it can be seen that by using the recuperator, the discarded cleaning medium has a significantly reduced temperature and the thermal load on the sewage network is correspondingly reduced.

In addition, the use of stacking tanks for the provision of cleaning media can also be dispensed with, so that a compact overall system design can be implemented. By avoiding stacking tanks for the respective process water, hygienic risks that can be associated with stacking cleaning media can be avoided and the entire cleaning and sterilization process can be made more microbiologically and hygienically stable.

The recuperator is preferably arranged upstream of the heater in the medium flow in order to preheat the respective cleaning media. This results in a gradual increase in the temperature level for the cleaning medium to achieve more efficient heating of the rinsing water and a reduced material load on the heating and the recuperator.

In an advantageous embodiment, the heater is a heat exchanger, preferably a heat exchanger operated with steam or hot water. The use of process steam or process hot water, which is provided in any case in the beverage bottling plant, allows the cleaning medium to be heated efficiently here.

The media return is preferably connected to a waste water connection in a switchable manner and the waste water connection is provided downstream of the recuperator in the media return. The waste water connection can be designed, for example, in the form of a gully. In this way, it can be realized that the used cleaning medium drawn off from the system part to be cleaned via the medium return transfers all or at least a significant part of the heat carried in itself to the fresh cleaning medium located in the medium flow before it is discarded.

In a development, the media return is connected to the media feed via a buffer circuit that includes a buffer tank. In this way, a cleaning medium can be circulated and temporarily buffered during the cleaning of the system part to be cleaned until it is replaced by a subsequent cleaning medium. Efficient cleaning can be achieved in this way.

A fresh water connection is preferably connected upstream of the media flow upstream of the recuperator. This means that the fresh water can first flow through the recuperator before it is used to clean the system parts to be cleaned. Accordingly, fresh water can first pass through the recuperator and then through the heater to achieve a gradual and efficient raising of the temperature of the fresh water.

The object mentioned above is also achieved by a method having the features of claim 7 . Advantageous developments result from the dependent claim.

Accordingly, a method for cleaning a part of a beverage bottling plant to be cleaned is proposed, comprising supplying a cleaning medium to the part of the plant to be cleaned and removing the used cleaning medium from the part of the plant to be cleaned, so that the cleaning medium is circulated, with prior to the supply of the cleaning medium to the part of the system to be cleaned heated by a heater. According to the invention, prior to the heating of the cleaning medium by means of the heater, heat energy is transferred from the cleaning medium removed to the cleaning medium to be supplied to the heater.

Brief description of the figures

Figur 1

eine schematische Schaltungsdarstellung eines Ausführungsbeispiels der vorgeschlagenen Vorrichtung, und

Figur 2

eine schematische Darstellung des Dampfverbrauchs der Heizung über die Zeit.

Preferred further embodiments and aspects of the present invention are explained in more detail by the following description of the figures. show:

figure 1

a schematic circuit representation of an embodiment of the proposed device, and

figure 2

a schematic representation of the steam consumption of the heater over time.

Detailed description of preferred embodiments

Preferred exemplary embodiments are described below with reference to the figures. Elements that are the same, similar or have the same effect are denoted by identical reference symbols and a repeated description of these elements is sometimes dispensed with in order to avoid redundancies in the description.

In figure 1 a device 1 for cleaning a part of a beverage bottling plant to be cleaned is shown schematically. The cleaning of the system parts takes place here via cleaning media, which are fed to the system part to be cleaned via a media supply 20 and returned from the system part to be cleaned via a media return 22 . The cleaning media can accordingly be circulated.

For the external cleaning of the system part to be cleaned, the media flow 20 opens, for example, into external cleaning nozzles or surge nozzles, with which the cleaning medium provided via the media flow 20 is applied to the surfaces to be cleaned of the system part to be cleaned. However, the media flow 20 can also be introduced into a closed area of the plant part to be cleaned, for example in the product lines and other media lines, in order to clean the inside of the parts to be cleaned make plant parts. The cleaning medium can be used in particular in CIP cleaning. The supply of cleaning media either for external cleaning or for internal cleaning of system parts in beverage bottling systems is known in principle.

The cleaning media used are fed back via the media return 22 after they have passed through the part of the plant to be cleaned or after they have flowed over the surfaces to be cleaned.

When cleaning the outside, the cleaning medium used returns to the medium return 22, for example by collecting the cleaning medium flowing off the surfaces at one or more drainage points of the part of the plant to be cleaned drains provides. The floor area can also be designed, for example, in the form of a funnel-shaped floor, which collects all of the outflowing media at a single drainage point and then discharges them into the media return 22 .

When cleaning the inside of the part of the plant to be cleaned, it can also be provided that the cleaning medium used is discharged via the bottom area of the part of the plant to be cleaned, for example if the cleaning medium flows out of the filling valves after passing through the filling product path and is accordingly collected in the bottom area of the part of the plant to be cleaned. In the case of internal cleaning, there can also be a closed circuit of the cleaning medium, in which the cleaning medium used is returned to the circuit via corresponding cleaning channels, which are also referred to as CIP channels, and is fed to the medium return 22 .

The cleaning medium supplied via the media supply 20 and returned via the media return 22 can be circulated in the device 1 , the supply from the media return 22 to a buffer tank 26 being provided via a circuit line 24 . From the buffer tank 26 , the cleaning medium is fed back to the medium flow 20 via a supply line 28 , which also includes a pump 29 .

In order to be able to provide different cleaning media and to be able to regenerate circulated cleaning media, for example, the supply of a Acid concentrate provided via an acid feed 30 and the supply of a lye concentrate via a lye feed 32 . Correspondingly, the cleaning medium accommodated in the buffer tank 26 can be supplied with the concentrate for producing or maintaining a desired concentration of alkali or acid via the alkali supply 32 or the acid supply 30 . The desired concentration can be monitored via sensors provided in the circuit line 24, which determine the supply of acid or alkali via a corresponding control.

Fresh water can be fed into the system via a fresh water connection 34 . The fresh water connection 34 accordingly enables fresh water to be supplied in order to achieve either a replacement of a first cleaning medium by a second cleaning medium, or to compensate for the loss of cleaning medium due to the cleaning itself and the evaporation of cleaning medium.

The cleaning medium which is received in the buffer tank 26 or is prepared or processed in the buffer tank 26 can be removed from the device 1 via a waste water connection 36 .

The cleaning medium can also be routed past the buffer tank 26 via a bypass 27 . This is particularly advantageous when clear water is used as the cleaning medium, which is used, for example, for pre-rinsing directly after production, or which is used for intermediate rinsing or rinsing. The water does not have to be temporarily stored in the buffer tank 26 . During pre-rinsing, in which a significant proportion of filling product is transported with the pre-rinsing water, the cleaning medium can also be routed directly to the waste water connection 36 via the bypass 27 and discarded.

Correspondingly, for example in order to carry out a pre-cleaning, a cleaning medium in the form of fresh water can be introduced via the fresh water connection 34 into the media flow 20, the system part to be cleaned can be cleaned with the fresh water, and the cleaning medium can then be fed directly via the media return 22 and the bypass 27 the waste water connection 36 are routed. There is no recirculation.

For a subsequent cleaning of the system parts to be cleaned, the fresh water then supplied via the fresh water connection 34 is either treated with lye via the lye supply 32 or acid is supplied via the acid feed 30 in order to provide the cleaning medium accordingly with the respective acid or alkali concentrates. These cleaning media can then be temporarily buffered via the buffer tank 26 for cleaning and to provide a corresponding exposure time and can be circulated by means of the pump 29 . During this cleaning phase, the chemical composition is constantly checked and, if necessary, readjusted by adding fresh water or by dosing in acid or lye concentrates.

Since, in addition to the composition of the chemistry and the mechanical application of cleaning pulses, the temperature is an important third component when cleaning system parts to be cleaned, the cleaning medium is heated by means of a heater 4 .

The heater 4 is provided in the media feed 20 in such a way that the cleaning medium, which is fed to the system parts to be cleaned via the media feed 20, is brought to the intended target temperature by means of the heater 4. In the exemplary embodiment shown, the heater 4 is provided in the form of a heat exchanger, to which process steam is supplied via a steam line 40 . The condensate is returned via a condensate line 42 . In the heater 4, which is accordingly provided as a steam heat exchanger, the cleaning medium fed to the medium flow 20 can be brought to the target temperature. For this purpose, a temperature sensor can be provided downstream of the heater 4, via which the heat output of the heat exchanger can be regulated.

Furthermore, a recuperator 5 is provided in the media flow 20 upstream of the heater 4 . On the one hand, the cleaning medium to be supplied to the heater 4 flows through the recuperator 5 . In other words, the recuperator 5 is in the medium flow 20 and has the cleaning medium flowing through it, which medium is to be fed to the system part to be cleaned before it enters the heater 4 . The cleaning medium of the medium flow 20 is guided in a first chamber system of the recuperator 5 .

The recuperator 5 is flowed through in its second chamber system by the cleaning medium returned via the medium return 22 . Correspondingly, at least a significant part of the heat energy present in the cleaning medium returned via the medium return 22 can be transferred to the cleaning medium flowing through the medium flow 20 before the cleaning medium flows through the heater 4 .

The cleaning medium can be preheated accordingly by means of the recuperator 5 before it flows into the heater 4 .

The required heat output of the heater 4, which is required to reach the target temperature of the cleaning medium in the medium flow 20, can thus be reduced. In this way, the use of the recuperator 5 can also reduce the maximum energy required, which has to be transferred to the cleaning medium in the media flow 20 by means of the heater 4 . The load on the steam network of the beverage bottling plant, for example, can then be reduced in this way.

When using permanent cleaning, in which the cleaning medium is discharged via the waste water connection 36, it is particularly advantageous that the thermal energy still present in the discarded cleaning medium is transferred to a significant part to the new cleaning medium before the new cleaning medium, which is then preheated, is in the heater 4 is heated to its target temperature.

The effect can be understood particularly well using the example of rinsing after the end of chemical cleaning. In particular, for rinsing, fresh water is brought into the supply line 28 via the fresh water connection 34 , pumped through the recuperator 5 via the pump 29 and then heated to the target temperature by means of the heater 4 . The cleaning medium from the previous cleaning step that is still in the cleaning system is at an increased temperature, for example, so that the cleaning medium returned via the medium return 22 correspondingly raises the fresh water in the recuperator 5 to a first temperature level. Accordingly, the heating power of the heater 4 can be reduced.

Furthermore, when fresh water continues to flow in via the fresh water connection 34, a significant part of the heat energy contained in the flushing water returned via the media return 22 can be transferred to the fresh water.

Furthermore, the discarded cleaning medium, which is fed into the waste water connection 36, is no longer so hot after passing through the recuperator 5, so that an excessive thermal load on the waste water network is also avoided.

As a result, the heat output of the heater 4 can be reduced overall, especially when rinsing the parts of the system to be cleaned, in which it is advantageous to rinse with very hot water in order to dry the rinsed parts of the system quickly. The required amount of steam, which is provided via the steam line 40, can thus also be reduced.

In figure 2 is shown schematically as a dot-dash curve the course of the steam removal for a heater, which worked according to the prior art without the use of the recuperator.

On the other hand, the solid line shows the course of the steam extraction of the heater 4 of the present construction using the recuperator 5 . It immediately follows that the maximum removal of steam from the steam network is significantly reduced, so that a peak load on the steam network can be reduced. In this way it can be achieved that a steam generator for a steam network of the system can be reduced in its dimensions, so that the entire beverage bottling system can be made more efficient.

reference list

1

Device for cleaning a part of a plant to be cleaned

20

media advance

22

media return

24

circuit line

26

buffer tank

27

bypass

28

supply line

29

pump

30

acid intake

32

lye supply

34

fresh water connection

36

waste water connection

4

heating

40

steam line

42

condensate line

5

recuperator

Claims (8)

1. Device (1) for cleaning a plant part to be cleaned in a beverage filling plant, comprising a medium flow pipe (20) for supplying a cleaning medium to the plant part to be cleaned, and having a medium return pipe (22) for discharging the used cleaning medium from the plant part to be cleaned, such that the cleaning medium is guided in a circuit, wherein a heating device (4) is provided for heating the cleaning medium in the medium flow pipe (20), and
   a recuperator (5) for transferring heat energy from the cleaning medium discharged via the medium return pipe (22) to the cleaning medium to be supplied to the heating device (4).
2. Device (1) according to claim 1, characterised in that the recuperator (5) is arranged upstream of the heating device (4) in the medium flow pipe (20).
3. Device (1) according to claim 1 or 2, characterised in that the heating device (4) is a heat exchanger, preferably a heat exchanger operated with steam or hot water.
4. Device (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that the medium return pipe (22) is connected in a switchable manner with a waste water terminal (36) and the waste water terminal (36) is provided in the medium return pipe (22) downstream of the recuperator (5).
5. Device (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that the medium return pipe (22) is connected to the medium flow pipe (20) via a buffer circuit which comprises a buffer tank (26).
6. Device (1) according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that a freshwater terminal (34) is connected upstream of the medium flow pipe (20) upstream of the recuperator (5).
7. Method for cleaning a plant part to be cleaned of a beverage filling plant, comprising the supply of a cleaning medium to the plant part to be cleaned and the discharge of the used cleaning medium from the plant part to be cleaned, such that the cleaning medium is guided in a circuit, wherein prior to the supply of the cleaning medium to the plant part to be cleaned, the cleaning medium is heated by means of a heating device (4), and,
   prior to the heating of the cleaning medium by means of the heating device (4), heat energy from the discharged cleaning medium is transferred to the cleaning medium to be supplied to the heating device (4).
8. Method according to claim 7, characterised in that the transfer of the heat energy is carried out by means of a recuperator (5) arranged upstream of the heating device (4).

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