Pneumatic Conveying, Weighing & Batching System

Industry:
Food and Beverages
Client:
One of the world’s largest private label manufacturers of coffee product in South India.
Location:
Telangana, India
Client Requirement –
  • A Pneumatic conveying system for premix coffee preparation which required moving the desired premix coffee ingredients from the infeed to the respective destination points. Using a technique that allows movement of materials consistently while matching the rate of production requirements, the goal was to maximize production, while maintaining a safe operating environment.
  • At the site location, various ingredients (sugar, NDC and coffee powder) for the premix coffee were available in bags. The requirement was to convey all ingredients from the RMS to the surge hopper and then a precise quantity of ingredients, from the surge hopper was to be transferred to the Blender (to make sure all ingredients were properly combined) for manufacturing the Pre-mix coffee powder, after which the final product would be conveyed to the packaging line.
Solution

Rieco has offered a Negative/Vacuum type conveying system which is specially designed to operate with a negative pressure and used to convey ingredients for the premix coffee and sugar through special conveying rotary airlock valves.

The material is pneumatically conveyed through their respective pneumatic conveying lines with the help of the diverter valve. The selection of diversion of the pneumatic conveying line, to any specific surge hopper can be attained through a selector switch provided on the control panel.

Bin mounted bag filters are used for capturing the dust generated while conveying and also venting out fresh air to the atmosphere.

Weighing and batching systems are used to precisely fill the blender with Non-Dairy Cream (NDC) Powder, Forming Creamer Material, and Sugar. The weighing hopper takes weight measurements, and the feeders continue to release material until a set weight is reached within the hopper. This triggers and gives a signal to the feeder to stop further blending, after mixing all the ingredients thoroughly well – this blended pre-mix coffee powder is then passed through the Vibro sieve, to get the desired particle size at the outlet. The material is then conveyed to the storage silo and discharged through a metal detector before packaging. It detects the presence of metal particles, if any and the final Pre-mix coffee power is then discharged to the packaging system.

Why the Pneumatic conveying system, bag unloading station & weigh hopper
  • Complete hygiene is maintained due to zero human intervention, as required in the Food Industry
  • Precise weighing and batching of ingredients are obtained
  • No risk of contamination
  • Automized powder handling – ensuring better process controls, less manpower and safety in plants
  • Dust-free operation and less spillage resulting in a good yield recovery
Challenges
  • Precise weighing and conveying as it is a recipe-oriented conveying, where material must be added in accurate quantities
  • Precise quantity of material transferred to the blender
  • Flexible routing of Bulk materials
  • Avoiding contamination of the product and keeping the plant clean
Results
  • 1 TPH Conveying capacity from the Bag Unloading Station to the Silo for Sugar.
  • 1 TPH Conveying capacity from the Bag Unloading Station to the Silo for Coffee pre-mix ingredients
  • 2 TPH Conveying capacity from the Weigh Hopper to the Blender for all the Coffee pre-mix ingredients.
  • Our systems were built to work in compact layouts, with specially placed side access filters for convenience.
  • Obtained clean, dust-free enclosed systems.
Values added by Rieco
  • Raw material and finished good handling duration were significantly reduced leading to better productivity
  • Manpower and labour costs optimised
  • The system is more reliable and efficient
  • The system is easy to operate
  • Perfect recipe achieved due to accuracy in batch sizes
  • Totally dust-proof and a hygienic system
  • Minimum power consumption for the overall system
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