In-situ cleaning

The cleaning and hygienic design of equipment for the beverage, food and pharmaceutical industries are indispensable for a hygienic and safe production. However, filter media have catch-up potential due to their fine and hard-to-clean surfaces. The cleaning of filters is often conservative due to rigid cleaning processes. Demand-oriented cleaning has a lot of optimization potential in this area in particular.
In preliminary work, the efficiency of filter cloth cleaning was increased with the help of pulsating jets. In addition, an optical residue detection system based on image evaluation was developed. Now both concepts are combined and transferred to a membrane filter press. The aim is a cleaning unit with a pulsatile-driven nozzle lance and an optical camera unit for residue analysis. The optical sensor acts on the cleaning unit via an interface and indicates insufficiently cleaned areas. The combination of both components enables a demand-oriented cleaning concept and thus represents an efficient, optimized and resource-saving cleaning method.
The automated and demand-oriented cleaning is examined in laboratory experiments and relevant influencing parameters are determined. At the same time, the algorithm for analyzing of the contamination state will be developed. Finally, the process is implemented on a membrane filter press. The used industrial press is used in the field of beer mash separation and the implementation takes place due to the practical relevance and the suitability of beer mash as complex model contamination. The cleaning technology presented here can thus easily be transferred to other filter press systems. Therefore, the research results are useable in a wide range of applications to increase cleaning processes, avoid contamination and increase product safety.