Enormous Energy Savings for Packaging Process

Fresh and ready-to-eat salads, vegetable dishes, herbs, and freshly minimize fruit form a half of Gartenfrisch Jung GmbH’s product portfolio. The long-established firm has advanced into the German market leader for fresh convenience merchandise thanks to its high quality and experience. Since early 2019, the vacuum supply to its tray sealer packaging machines has been exceptionally energy-efficient following the installation of a central vacuum system by Busch Vacuum Solutions.
Gartenfrisch Jung produces its convenience foods in a contemporary facility in Jagsthausen, a town within the German state of Baden-Württemberg. To allow it to supply contemporary uncooked produce all yr spherical, the corporate has its personal growers in Germany and Portugal. Cultivation in two different local weather zones ensures that the entire product range may be provided year-round, sold to finish customers across Germany by way of grocery store chains and low cost stores. The ready-to-eat salads are packaged into bowls under the company’s personal label, in addition to for third get together brands. Gartenfrisch Jung’s historical past dates again to 1795. What began out as a small piece of farmland has now transformed into built-in, managed growers of salads and greens and another arm for processing these merchandise. As a family business, Gartenfrisch Jung has been passed from one era to the subsequent ever since it began. The expertise gained in consequence has therefore grown steadily, leading to the company’s successful development and a top quality commonplace of its merchandise. Nowadays, Gartenfrisch Jung processes one hundred twenty tonnes of raw food daily. This is equal to dealing with 2,000 pallets, that are then delivered to prospects by 80 refrigerated automobiles.
The ready-to-eat salad dishes (Fig. 1) are packaged on twelve packaging lines with tray sealer packaging machines. In the previous, these packaging machines were outfitted with one rotary vane vacuum pump every, although one machine had two vacuum pumps. These thirteen vacuum pumps had been used to evacuate the trays to the required vacuum stage prior to sealing. A two-shift operation is in place on all twelve packaging strains. The vacuum pumps ran constantly all through these shifts, other than throughout breaks. During a third shift, the manufacturing services are cleaned while all equipment is stationary.
Jochen Neff, who’s in control of expertise at Gartenfrisch Jung, was on the lookout for an alternative vacuum provide, as a result of the heat radiated by the 13 vacuum pumps was placing a pressure on the air con system in the manufacturing facilities, which are cooled to between 5 and 6 degrees Celsius. Furthermore, the vacuum pumps had an put in motor output of over 50 kilowatts. The vacuum specialists from Busch Vacuum Solutions analyzed the state of affairs and really helpful a centralized vacuum supply, which might be set up in a non-air-conditioned room outdoors the production services.
Because Jung’s comfort products have the perfect vacuum for packaging at a vacuum stage of four hundred millibars, Busch recommended using MINK claw vacuum pumps. This kind of vacuum pump has the very best effectivity issue out of all mechanical vacuum pumps. This is a results of their contact-free operating principle, which implies that the transferring elements contained in the vacuum pump do not come in contact with each other. In turn, no oil-based lubrication is required and all upkeep work associated to using oil as an working fluid is eradicated.
Busch designed a vacuum system with three frequency-controlled MINK claw vacuum pumps (Fig. 2), every of which was equipped with a motor with a nominal motor rating of eight kilowatts. However, one of the three vacuum pumps is exclusively on stand-by. Nevertheless, the control system is programmed to make certain that all three vacuum pumps have the identical number of operating hours.
Centralizing the vacuum provide enabled the total put in motor rating to be lowered from 50.2 to sixteen kilowatts (Fig. 3) if we assume that two of the vacuum pumps run at 60 Hertz, i.e. most power. This would correspond to a sixty eight p.c reduction in power consumption. However, in apply Jochen Neff has found that solely one of many two MINK claw vacuum pumps is normally in use and that this tends to run at a reduced rotational velocity. After several months of use, Jochen Neff has measured average energy consumption of four kilowatt hours for the complete vacuum provide. This is especially linked to the reality that the twelve packaging lines don’t all at all times run at maximum speed and not all of the machines are in use all the time. The demand-based management system then decreases the rotational pace to reduce back the output, which means that the system only provides the efficiency that is truly required. In apply, this equates to power savings of over 90 % for vacuum technology.
The new centralized vacuum system was put in in April 2019 and has been in use each since. It is related to the packaging machines via a network of pipelines. Two upstream vacuum vessels with a quantity of 1,500 liters every ensure that the required vacuum stage is out there in the packaging chambers as quickly as it is needed in the packaging cycle. Removing the thirteen unique vacuum pumps from the manufacturing areas relieved strain from the air con system. This meant that the air conditioning system could possibly be turned right down to hold the room temperature between 5 and 6 levels Celsius. The financial savings in power costs because of decreasing the air con output have not been measured. However, เกจวัดความดันแก๊ส can generally be assumed that the change resulted in a big reduction in the vitality consumed by the air con system.
Thanks to the vacuum system’s redundant design, upkeep could be carried out on the person MINK claw vacuum pumps throughout manufacturing and packaging. MINK claw vacuum pumps are practically maintenance-free. Maintenance is restricted primarily to the annual preventive change in gear oil. This is performed by a Busch service technician. With the centralized vacuum system, Jochen Neff has created a extremely energy-efficient, reliable and economical vacuum supply for packaging his comfort products.
Fig: 1: One of twelve traces used to package comfort merchandise on tray sealers
Fig. 2: Vacuum system with three MINK claw vacuum pumps during meeting with the 2 vacuum vessels in the background
Fig. 3: Comparison of vitality consumption for a decentralized and centralized vacuum supply
Image rights: Busch Vacuum Solutions
Busch Vacuum Solutions
Global Marketing – Uli Merkle
10 March 2020
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