IES980858A2 - A blood treatment and recovery apparatus - Google Patents

Abstract

A composite blood treatment and recovery apparatus for a slaughterhouse, which has a number of temporary storage tanks (6) which are fed from a blood collection tray (50) with blood and an anticoagulant. The blood is identified as from a specific animal and is retained in the temporary storage tank (6) until the animal has been tested and the blood is passed for further processing. If accepted, the blood in the holding tank (6) is pumped to a final holding vessel where the blood is kept at the optimum temperature and consisting by the use of a chiller unit (4) blood cooler (5) and stirrers (20). Almost all the equipment except for the blood collection tray (50) and associated piping is mounted on a skid unit (1) allowing ease of relocation, repair and maintenance. <Fig. 1>.

Description

A Blood Treatment and Recovery Apparatus The present invention relates to an apparatus and process for the treatment and recovery of blood from abattoirs.

There is increasing concerns being expressed by consumers and governments in respect of diseases transmitted by animal meat to humans. There is an awareness by both the public and governments of the need for higher standards in the slaughtering of such animals. io The meat industry has responded, in general, positively to these concerns and has been aware that the treatment and recovery of any animal product that would subsequently be eaten by humans or may, in some way, enter the food chain such as, for example, being used for feeding animals which would then in turn be consumed by humans requires the highest standards of care both in the treatment of these recovered products but also in their subsequent processing.

The treatment and recovery of blood from an abattoir is one of the major concerns for operators. uhi fu FubLiC iirt&H£CTiON UNDER SECTION 26 AND RUL&23 It is essential that all the blood is collected and it is vital to ensure that if a particular animal is rejected after slaughtering as would often be the case when it has been examined by a veterinary surgeon or other scientist that the blood from that rejected animal is disposed of safely and does not contaminate any of the other blood collected. Full traceability is absolutely essential.

Further blood is particularly prone to deterioration under storage, not just simply coagulation, but it is a fertile breeding ground for all forms of infection and disease. Thus, the blood must not coagulate during its IE 980858 -2processed.

Apparatus used in the treatment and recovery of blood must be maintained to the highest standards of hygiene and cleaning in place techniques are almost obligatory. Regular and careful cleaning of all the treatment and recovery apparatus is essential. Leading from this there is a need for an efficient and environmentally friendly effluent disposal system and particularly one which disposes safely of all rejected blood.

In many instances, abattoirs contain more than one slaughterhouse or slaughter area and it is desirable that any blood treatment and recovery apparatus should be adapted to handle more than one slaughterhouse or slaughter area. It is particularly the case where certain animals are slaughtered in much greater numbers at certain times of the year than at others. Many slaughterhouses at the present moment do not have an efficient blood treatment and recovery apparatus and it is necessary to provide such an apparatus that can be relatively quickly and efficiently installed in existing abattoirs. Usually after recovery of the blood, the blood is subsequently processed and used by other processors and therefore the blood has to be stored correctly until it is delivered to these other processors, usually by road tanker.

Generally speaking most slaughterhouses require storage of the order of 10,000 litres or so.

The present invention is directed towards providing an improved apparatus and process for blood treatment and recovery in abattoirs and slaughterhouses generally.

IE 980858 -3Statements of Invention According to the invention there is provided a blood treatment and recovery apparatus comprising: a movable base support skid unit on which is mounted, at least two temporary storage tanks; a final holding vessel fed from each temporary storage tank; refrigeration means for the final storage tank; and an anti-coagulation solution storage tank; a separate blood collection tray for mounting below an animal being slaughtered; a blood delivery pipe connecting the blood collection tray and each temporary storage tank; and an anti-coagulation pipe connecting the anti-coagulation solution storage tank and the blood the collection tray.

This apparatus with the movable skid unit ensures that the apparatus can be installed quickly and efficiently in any particular slaughterhouse area and if necessary can be moved about the plant or even removed from the plant from time to time. The fact that it is all in the one unit ensures that it is easily removed for maintenance and repair or moved where it is required in another area of a slaughterhouse. This also ensures that all the equipment is contained in the one unit and this makes it particularly advantageous for fitting in an existing slaughterhouse. Indeed if there is not sufficient space in the slaughterhouse, then it is a simple matter to encase the skid and the apparatus in a shed or other structure such as, for example, in a storage yard.

IE 980858 -4Further having temporary storage tanks ensures that when blood has to be rejected the minimum amount of blood is rejected, since it will be appreciated that once blood has to be rejected any blood with which it is mixed must also be rejected.

It has also been found that having the refrigeration unit with the holding vessel ensures that the blood is stored at the correct temperature for disease free conditions.

The advantage of having a separate blood collection tray which forms part of the apparatus is that the whole apparatus is then one unit which ensures that all of the parts can be cleaned and maintained in a fully hygienic way.

Ideally the blood collection tray has mounted thereon spray nozzles fed by the anti-coagulation pipe.

It has been found that by spraying anti-coagulation solution onto the blood it mixes quicker with the blood and prevents even a slight amount of coagulation taking place. Simply mixing anti-coagulant solution with blood does not appear to be as quick or as efficient as spraying it.

Indeed ideally a blood recirculation pipe, pump and spray nozzle are provided for the blood collection tray. Continually agitating the blood by recirculating it and by spraying it on top of itself and on any new blood collected on the tray ensures that coagulation is practically prevented.

Ideally blood filtering means is provided between the temporary IE 980858 -5storage tanks and the final holding vessel. The advantage of this is that the blood leaves the abattoir in the best possible condition and even if a certain amount of coagulation takes place that the coagulated blood is not delivered to the final holding vessel.

Indeed ideally the final holding vessel includes blood agitation means. The advantage of this is that with chilling and agitation there is no separation or settlement of the blood within the holding vessel. It is very important that the blood when stored retains its cohesive nature and does not in any way separate Into various strata within the tank. Since on pumping out of the tank if separation were to take place the blood would not be of the correct consistency and make up.

In one embodiment of the invention a cleaning fluid tank, a hot water tank and associated pipework are provided on the skid for cleaning in place. The advantage of this will be readily apparent in that it is ideal to have these on the skid to ensure that cleaning fluid and hot water are close to all the tanks and pipework so that they can be relatively efficiently cleaned.

It is envisaged that in accordance with the invention a separate reject tank is provided for rejected blood and is connected to the temporary storage tanks. Ideally the reject tank is remote from the skid unit. While the reject tank may be mounted on the skid unit and in some embodiments it will be, generally speaking since rejected blood will also be stored with other rejected animal parts, its storage is generally remote from the skid unit. It is however vital that all rejected blood be disposed of in accordance with best practice.

Further the invention provides a process for the treatment and recovery of blood from an abattoir comprising the steps of: IE 980858 -6allowing the blood from an identified slaughtered animal to fall into a storage tray; adding anti-coagulation liquid to the gathered blood in the storage tray; recirculating the blood in the tray, or aerating the blood in the tray; delivering the blood to and holding it in temporary storage as a separate identified batch of blood; testing the animal from which the blood came while holding the blood in temporary storage; rejecting or accepting the animal and hence the batch of blood; delivering the accepted identified batch of blood to a final holding vessel; delivering the rejected identified batch of blood to another reject holding tank; and chilling the blood in the final holding vessel until removed.

This process provides a hygienic and more importantly diseasecontrolling process whereby rejected blood will not be subsequently used in the food chain. At the same time the blood recovered will be stored and treated in the optimum way.

IE 980858 -7Heretofore too little attention has been paid to the handling of the blood in the storage trays immediately after slaughtering. Generally speaking operators were of the view that the blood could be collected in any haphazard fashion and then as long as it was subsequently treated with anti-coagulants, chilled and agitated that this would be sufficient. However it has been found that the most vital time to treat the blood is immediately after it has been removed from the animal. If it is then recirculated, aerated and thoroughly mixed with an anti-coagulation agent then from the very start it has the right consistency and is in generally good condition. It does not deteriorate in the time between its removal from the animal and subsequent storage in a chilled and possibly agitated holding vessel. It is not simply enough to treat the blood in the holding vessel. It is vital that the blood is correctly treated in all stages of its processing before delivery to a final holding vessel.

It will be appreciated that an identified batch of blood comes from more than one animal and in which rejection of one animal rejects the whole batch of blood. It would be inefficient and uneconomical to take the blood from each animal and separately process it since it is only the rare animal that is rejected after slaughtering and thus it is more economic to handle the blood from a number of identified animals in the one batch. It is then, however, important to ensure that all that blood is subsequently rejected if the blood of one of the animals is rejected.

Indeed ideally the blood is filtered prior to delivery to the final holding vessel.

Advantageously when blood being held in temporary storage is rejected the following steps are performed: IE 980858 -8all the blood which was in the storage tray and temporary storage subsequent to the rejected blood is also rejected; and the storage tray, tanks and pipes which carried this blood are cleaned.

Totally cleaning all the portions of the plant or apparatus that might have come in contact with any contaminated blood prior to handling any more blood in the apparatus is a particularly efficient way of ensuring that contamination of blood that subsequently re-enters the food chain, whether it be directly for consumption by the consumer or indirectly for animal feed, is not likely to occur by reason of rejected blood having been handled.

Indeed as will be appreciated periodically there is performed the additional steps of: emptying all the tanks and the final holding vessel of blood; flushing a cleaning liquid through the final holding vessel and all the blood carrying pipes and tanks; delivering the cleaning liquid to effluent storage; flushing hot water through all the blood carrying pipes and tanks; and delivering the hot water to effluent storage.

Again this only conforms to good practice, but the particular process and apparatus according to the invention allows this to be relatively IE 980858 -9easily and efficiently performed.

Detailed Description of the Invention The invention will be more clearly understood from the following description of an embodiment thereof given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:Fig. 1 is a schematic view illustrating the apparatus and its operation according to the invention; and Fig. 2 is a perspective view of a skid unit according to the invention on which most of the apparatus is mounted.

Before referring to the drawings it should be noted that not all the apparatus is shown in Fig. 2, nor are all of the units making up the skid unit shown in this drawing.

Referring to the drawings there is provided a skid unit identified by the reference numeral 1 having a base skid support 2 on which is mounted a final holding vessel 3 and a refrigeration means formed from a chiller unit 4 and a blood cooler 5. On one side of the final holding vessel 3 there is mounted three temporary holding tanks 6, only one of which can be seen in Fig. 2. On the other side of the holding vessel 3 there are mounted a dosing tank 7, hot water tank 8, a detergent tank 9, a dosing pump 10 and a main pump 12. A control panel 13 is shown mounted on the base skid support 2 which also carries a structure incorporating an access walkway 14.

The final holding vessel 3 has a pair of stirrers 20 operated by electric motors 21 and a pair of access hatches 22 and is illustrated in Fig. 1 as IE 980858 -10being connected by pipework 23 + 23a the chiller unit 4 and the blood cooler 5 respectively. Further sprayballs 24 are mounted within the final holding vessel 3 and are connected by pipework 25 to a flow controller 26 which incorporates a number of flow valves. The final holding vessel 3 feeds the flow controller 26 through a pipe 27. The detergent tank 9 and the hot water tank 8 feed the flow controller 26 through a pump 27a and piping 28. The three holding tanks 6 feed through piping 29, not all of which is illustrated, an air diaphragm valve 30 which in turn feeds a strainer tank 31 through piping 32 which feeds the cooler 5 and from thence through piping 33 to the flow controller 26. It will be noted that each tank 6 has further sprayballs 24 fed by piping 34 from a main blood delivery line 35.

It will be noted that one of the temporary holding tanks 6 is provided with a stirrer 37. The dosing tank 7 has a stirrer 41 which is used for anti-coagulation liquid is connected by piping 42 to the dosing pump 10 which in turn feeds through a mesh strainer 44 an anti-coagulation feed pipe 45.

Mounted remote from the skid unit 1 is a blood collection tray 50 which will be placed beneath animals being slaughtered in the abattoir, which blood collection tray has an anti-coagulation spray bar 51 fed from the feedpipe 45 and a blood spray bar 52 fed by a recirculation pipe 53 incorporating an air diaphragm valve 54. It will be appreciated these air diaphragm valves act as pumps to allow recirculation in this particular case of blood and anti-coagulation mixture.

The blood collection tray 50 is connected to the main blood delivery line 35 through another air diaphragm valve 54a. The blood collection tray 50 is also connected to a further air diaphragm valve 55 and piping 56 to a drain 57.

IE 980858 -11 Conventional sighting scale 60 shown diagrammatically in Fig. 1 are provided for the final holding vessel 3, the dosing tank 7 and one of the temporary holding tanks 6. Hot water supply pipes 61 as well as air line supply pipes 62 are illustrated. Not all the pipework or all the valves are referred to or illustrated.

In operation the dosing tank 7 is filled with citric acid and is mixed with hot water from the supply and is then delivered through the feed pipe 45 to the spray bar 51 where it is sprayed on blood collected from animals being slaughtered in the slaughterhouse. The blood and anticoagulation mixture, namely the citric acid-water mix are then recirculated around the blood collection tray 50 through the recirculation pipe 53. When sufficient blood has been collected in the blood circulation tray 50, the blood is delivered by the main blood delivery line 35 to one of the three temporary holding tanks 6 where the blood which has been identified against each of the animals slaughtered is sprayed into the tank through one of the sprayballs 24 and is then retained in the tank until the animals that have been slaughtered are accepted or rejected in the factory. Once the animals have been accepted, the blood is then pumped through the strainer tank 31 via the flow controller 26 through the pipework and sprayballs 24 into the final holding vessel 3 where the chiller unit 4 and blood cooler 5 keep the blood at the correct temperature and the stirrers 20 ensure that the blood does not separate during storage. This also helps to avoid coagulation. When it is desired to empty the final holding vessel 3 the blood is delivered through the piping 27, through the flow controller 26 by, for example, a flexible hose identified by the reference numeral 70 to a tanker 71.

If blood has to be rejected it is delivered out of the pipe 29 to a bad IE 980858 -12blood storage tank which is not illustrated.

When bad blood has been detected all the blood which was in the storage tray, namely, the blood collection tray 50 and temporary storage, namely one or more of the temporary storage tanks 6 subsequent to the rejected blood is also rejected and the storage tanks and pipes which carried this blood are cleaned by delivering detergent from the detergent tank 9 and hot water from the hot water tank 8 through all the various pipework and tanks so as to totally clean them.

The collection tray 50 will be cleaned in the usual manner by water to the drain 57. All the water used to clean the pipework and tanks will be delivered through the pipework to an effluent tank, again not shown.

It will be appreciated that by the arrangement of the piping and the various tanks at any stage the apparatus can be emptied and periodically they can be flushed with a cleaning liquid through all the blood carrying pipes and tanks and then this water and cleaning solution will be delivered to effluent storage.

The invention is not limited to the embodiments hereinbefore described which may be varied in both construction and detail.

IE 980858

Claims (5)

C LA IMS

1. A blood treatment and recovery apparatus comprising: a movable base support skid unit on which is mounted, a temporary storage tank; a final holding vessel fed from each temporary storage tank; and refrigeration means for the final storage tank; a separate blood collection tray for mounting below an animal being slaughtered; and a blood delivery pipe connecting the blood collection tray and the temporary storage tank.

2. A blood treatment and recover apparatus as claimed in claim 1 in which there are at least two temporary stroage tanks and an anti-coagnulation storage tank connected by an anti-coagulation pipe with the blood collection tray, which may optionally have some or all of the following: spray nozzles mounted on the blood collection tray fed by the anti-coagulation pipe; a blood recirculation pipe, pump and spray nozzle for the blood collection tray; a blood filtering means provided between the temporary storage tanks and the final holding vessel; blood agitation means for the final holding vessel; IE 980858 -14a cleaning fluid tank, a hot water tank and associated pipework on the skid for cleaning in place; a separate reject tank for rejected blood and connected to the temporary storage tanks; a reject tank remote from the skid unit; and all the tanks and the final holding vessel connected to a remotely located effluent tank for storage of cleaning liquids after cleaning.

3. A blood treatment and recovery apparatus substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to the and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

4. A process for the treatment and recovery of blood from an abattoir comprising the steps of: allowing the blood from an identified slaughtered animal to fall into a storage tray; adding anti-coagulation liquid to the gathered blood in the storage tray; recirculating the blood in the tray, or aerating the blood in the tray; delivering the blood to and holding it in temporary storage as a separate identified batch of blood; IE 980858 -15testing the animal from which the blood came while holding the blood in temporary storage; 5. Rejecting or accepting the animal and hence the batch of blood; delivering the accepted identified batch of blood to a final holding vessel; delivering the rejected identified batch of blood to another reject holding tank; and chilling the blood in the final holding vessel until removed. 15

5. A process for the treatment and recovery of blood from an abattoir substantially as described herein.