CIP is the abbreviation of “cleaning in place” and stands for the cleaning of complete plant installations (pipeline circuits, hoppers, silo’s, etc…) without dismantling or opening any equipment. The main principle consists out of circulating chemical composed liquids and rinse water through your processing installation. The main goal of a CIP installation is to remove all of your product residues and exclude any microbiological, allergen, color or taste issues.
J-Tec has already installed a wide array of CIP installations during its 40 years of industrial processing activities in as well the dairy, the baby food and the drinks processing industries. These applications improved without any doubt the hygienic aspects of the executed projects. Furthermore they also lowered the environmental impact, reduced manual efforts, encountered the wear of the equipment and entailed considerable cost savings.
Recently we designed and installed a state of the art baby food processing installation in which we have foreseen a fully equipped CIP installation. In this specific case, the piping, the extruder and the cyclones of the installed blending lines can be fully cleaned in place. This was necessary in order to exclude the chance of allergen contamination and guarantee a hygienic environment.
The implemented CIP installation contains 3 different liquid tanks, each filled with a different substance. At first, the to be cleaned equipment will be injected with pre-rinse water obtained from the first tank. Afterwards an injection with caustic from the second tank takes place. The caustic provides a better cleaning of the equipment and will remove all the residues. The used caustic will at the end of the second flushing be partly recollected in its original tank in order to save as much lye as possible. Then rinse water from the third tank will be flushed through the installation. At this stage possible residue of the previous lye injection will be recollected in the first tank. At the penultimate step of the process, a neutralization tank is installed which purifies the polluted water and eventually allows it to be drained away without polluting the environment. The cleaned installation is connected to a hot air circuit which in the last phase of the cleaning process vaporizes the remaining drops of liquids. In no time your installation is back as new, free of allergens and ready for production once again.
