Sacktip tray and lump breaker solution for artifical sweetners processing

Processing of artificial sweeteners

Processed Materials: Erythritol

Objective: Our client, located in Pennsauken, NJ, USA, is a premier private labeler and contract manufacturer for the food and beverage industry. They specialize in the production of sauces, soups, salsas, oils, jams, dips and juices.
They required the assistance of Palamatic Process to improve and eliminate current production bottlenecks concerning the delivery of 50 lbs. bags of erythritol. Due to the long shelf life of this artificial sweetener, it can form lumps due to compression and exposure to humidity. The operators were needing to break apart the lumps by hand, causing production feed slow down and possible risk of injury due to the method of manual material handling. Since this is a food production process, equipment needed to be manufactured in 304 stainless steel and rated for washdown procedures to avoid cross-contamination between ingredients.

The Solution: Our team designed a bag dump station with CIP capability that would incorporate the following features: dust extraction, sack compactor, vacuum bag lift station, and lump breaker. With this setup, the operators could safely unload the bags of erythritol in lump form and allow our lump crusher to return the bulk material back to it’s free-flowing state.

The Equipment:

• The Ergotip – Semi-automated sack tip tray
• The CBU60 Bag Compactor
• Vacuum Bag Lifter Manis 160-1700
• EC Series Lump Breaker

What is Erythritol? According to Wikipedia, erythritol is an organic compound, a sugar alcohol (or polyol), used as a food additive and sugar substitute. It is naturally occurring. It can be made from corn using enzymes and fermentation. Erythritol is 60–70% as sweet as sucrose (table sugar). However, erythritol is almost completely noncaloric and does not affect blood sugar or cause tooth decay. Japanese companies pioneered the commercial development of erythritol as a sweetener in the 1990s.

The client required a bag dump station that would both ease the manual labor of its operators and improve the containment of materials and dust that required feeding into their existing pneumatic conveying system.
The Ergotip, by Palamatic Process, is a semi-automated bag dump station that uses a serrated cutting blade on a pneumatic cylinder to provide a clean cut to the minor ingredient sacks for easy opening and powder feeding operations. The bag cutting blade requires an operator to use both hands via a two-handed switch, to activate the air cylinder which causes the blade to swing up from the discharge hopper and puncture the bag from below the safety grid it rests on. This action provides a clean cut through the bag material. The operator then only needs to open the dust-tight access door and fold both ends of the bags upward, without lifting the heavy load, causing the powder to discharge into the hopper below. The bag dump station is fitted with a small dust collection system and fan that pulls a slight atmospheric negative pressure from the body of the sack tip tray. As the air is pulled through the filter cartridge, any free-floating dust particles are trapped in the filter. As the dust builds up on the filter, a small compressed air tank sends a blast of air through the cartridge, unclogging the filter and minimizing product loss (reverse jet pulse filtration). The station is also fitted with CIP nozzles for clean in place wash down between product runs to fully sanitize and flush out any remaining residual materials.

The sack compactor is capable of taking paper and poly-woven material bags and reducing them down to a compacted tube of waste for easier and safer disposal. The main advantages of the CBU60 are full dust containment and reduced volumes of waste for a cleaner and healthier work production area.

The waste compacting unit is integrated through a porthole to the side of the bag dump station. Once the operator empties the bag of its contents, they simply toss the waste into the port. From there, the bag falls into a hopper fitted with a large direct drive auger that pushes it down a compaction tube. The tube is fitted with a plastic sleeve that is held in place by two elastomer tension rings that provide resistance for compaction. As the bags build up in the chamber, they compact against the end of the sleeve and each other, slowly exerting force outwards on the sleeve (somewhat like an extruder). As the sleeve grows, it can contain hundreds of compacted bags within only a few meters. Once it has reached a predetermined length, the operator simply needs to twist the tube, creating a link, zip tie it in two places around the twist and cut it in the middle. With this method, the next link is started for compaction and the old link is fully contained and can be thrown away.

In order to alleviate risk of injury from repetitive motions and heavy lifting, operators require a better means for handling heavy loads all day during production. The repetitive lifting, cutting, opening and dumping of 50 lbs. sacks of powders can lead to severe strain on the neck, shoulders and back. This is why Palamatic Process offers the sack manipulator equipment which operates based on the principle of vacuum suction.

A large boot, fitted with a soft exterior gasket, is fitted with a long accordion style vacuum hose. This is connected to a festoon track on a jib crane that allows for both inward and outward maneuverability, as well as 260° rotation. The operator only needs one hand to operator both the vacuum control handle and suction head. The control handle increases or decreases the amount of suction from the vacuum pump through an air control valve. By lowering the suction boot, the operator allows the vacuum to attach itself to the bag and increases the suction which creates the upward lifting motion of the bag handler. He then easily places the bag on the safety tray of the bag dump station and decreases the suction to detach the boot from the bag. Operation of the bag handling system is effortless and can be done with one hand.
Several styles of jib cranes are available from floor mount, wall mount, ceiling mount and a mobile base via forklift operation.

The main purpose of this installation was to provide a flowable material that could be transferred in a dilute phase pneumatic conveying line without risk of clogging the pipes. Many powders, particularly in the food industry, tend to compress over time while in storage or agglomerate during the warmer weather and more humid months of the year. When lumps of material are fed into a powder transfer system, they can jam up the line causing hours of downtime for maintenance needs.

The lump breaker has the ability to break up soft to medium-hard lumps of powder and return them to their original free-flowing state. This allows the powder particles to mix with the air flow for perfect entrainment and transfer capabilities. The lump breaker works on the principle of a basic powder milling system by utilizing a gearbox style motor connected to twin shafts. The drive shafts are fitting with grinding teeth or paddles that pulverize the lumps until they are small enough to pass through the other side. However, lump breakers should not be confused with other types of powder mills that typically take a particle size and shatter it to produce multiple, smaller particles. Particle size reduction typically requires higher amounts of energy that can be found in devices such as: cone mills, hammer mills, pin mills, balls mills, jet mills, etc. The lump breaker was fitted with a VFD in this instance to allow operators control over the rotational speed of the powder flow aid device.

Palamatic Process has been supplying the powder and bulk solids industry with bulk material handling equipment since 1992. Our capabilities include original equipment manufacturing as well as system integration for turnkey solutions. In order to determine what solution is best for your project, contact one of our sales engineers. Together, our team of experts can provide the right kind of powder filling equipment that will fulfil your every production goal.
Contact one of our experts today for assistance with needed material handling solutions and to request a quote.