cleaning in place


cleaning in place

Introduction

CellFacts Instruments offer a cost effective automated control system to replace traditional timer based CIP systems. This system significantly reduces costs and increases throughput in most manufacturing process plants.

As a consequence of the water and energy savings possible the CellFacts technology has been included in the Enhanced Capital Allowance (ECA) Scheme’s Water Technology List.*

Features and Benefits

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Overview

Legislation and Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) dictates that regular cleaning of premises and plant is mandatory. In modern manufacturing processes, cleaning of plant is undertaken between batches, or at the end of the shift or working day to ensure a clean start with subsequent manufacture. For continuous processes, procedures are laid down to ensure the plant is stopped and cleaned at regular predetermined intervals.

Cleaning of plant is undertaken to prevent cross contamination of product (during batch changes), contamination by build up of potential spoilage organisms (food industry) and to remove the buildup of scale, residue or debris which can cause increased wear of machinery and infiltrate finished product. Most manufacturing processes involve the use of Cleaning In Place (CIP) which can be undertaken in situ eliminating the need to strip down the plant which is costly with respect to stoppage and labour time.

Virtually all current CIP systems are time controlled and whilst this has been the general custom and practice for many years its precision when switching between CIP fluids is no longer questionable. Protocol setup invariably involves manual timing by engineers and time scales set using worst case scenarios. Additional time is usually added to err on the side of safety. As a result many litres of cleaning fluids and water are lost. Where heated fluids are used there will have be significant energy savings by optimizing the use of such fluids. Compliance with set CIP procedures is guaranteed and authenticated.

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CellFacts Instruments

CellFacts Instruments have been developed to provide a rapid and simple method to investigate the particulate content of various samples. They are extremely versatile and may be used as an offline tool in the laboratory or alternatively on the production platform as a continuous online device where it can integrate with other control systems. The ability to detect, count, and size low numbers of particles, with equivalent spherical volumes greater than ~0.2 microns renders it particularly useful in the field of CIP. Trials have successfully undertaken to ascertain its suitability in the monitoring and control of cleaning processes.

The instruments have the potential to become an invaluable tool for CIP and the technology may be used to increase throughput by the reduction of CIP cycle times and to reduce CIP costs by reducing chemical, rinse water and energy usage. As there is automatic collection of data a hard copy record is produced for quality management support.

Cleaning efficiency is a combined function of flow rate, temperature, concentration and time. These generate a complex set of parameters which have to be optimised to ensure adequate cleaning of each piece of process equipment. The use of CellFacts enables the cleaning procedure to be viewed 'from the inside' by assessing the particle profiles of the cleaning fluids and the rinse waters during the different stages of the cycle so enabling alteration of the above parameters to ensure optimum performance in real-time. This application is particularly simple in so far as CellFacts measures and records particle profiles and counts during the various sequences of the process and then automatically triggers the next sequence when predetermined parameter thresholds are met.

Most CIP systems operate various permutations of the following sequences:

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Figure 1: Particle profiles of various types of rinse water samples taken during the CIP of a dairy process application.

This technology is able to differentiate between heavy and light soiling by virtue of assessment of the particle loading of the fluids at each of the sequences of the process. By monitoring the particle profile during each of the above sequences CellFacts can control the entire CIP process by initiation of subsequent sequences when predetermined criteria are met. Consequently it offers real-time, online assessment of the state of cleaning at any time which is under real-time control. This is unlike traditional timer controlled methods which are predetermined for worst case scenarios and have cycle times erring on the side of caution. As a consequence individual sequence times can be significantly reduced. Furthermore timer controlled systems can result in cleaning problems if there is an abnormal circumstance such as exceptionally heavy soiling or a sensor (temperature or detergent concentration) failure necessitating visual inspection.

With CellFacts excessive cycle time criteria can be preprogrammed and alarms operated to alert operators of a problem.

As well as significant cost savings another benefit of using CellFacts is its ability to automatically provide a detailed record of each individual cleaning process and data for HACCP and Quality Management Support.

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