Re-using chemicals and water used for cleaning process instalations

May 2000 Analytical Instrumentation & Environmental Monitoring

In many cases, line injection is a good alternative to conventional generation and recovery tanks for certain clean-in-place (CIP) phases. CIP is built round the concept of recovering and reusing the chemicals and water that flush out pipes, tanks, valves and machinery. However, for certain phases of the CIP process, recovery is impractical.

The alternative is injecting the chemicals used in these phases directly into the pipeline that carries the cleaning or rinsing water. This line injection is a good way to save money on generation and recovery tanks.

In a dairy application, involving all types of dairy products, the plant line-injects acid sanitizer, at the next-to-last CIP stage (before the final rinse). So little acid is used in this phase, and the cycle weakens it so much, that recovering it would not be cost effective. There are exceptions, such as when a CIP system has to clean out a large valve manifold or a particularly long pipeline.

The acid rinse neutralises any traces of the alkaline wash that precedes it, and passivates any metal surfaces. Acid washes, on the other hand, use higher concentrates to flood the system. Recovery of wash phases is practical on a number of levels – water and chemical economy, and wastewater regulations.

One of the biggest problems with line injection is keeping the proper ratio of chemicals to water. Temperature, pressure and other changing parameters alter the amount of water in the system. Having the correct ratio of chemicals to water is especially important for plants that deal in fat-heavy products such as dairy products, as the acid washes and rinses must be washed out with alkaline.

Conductivity sensors are often used to measure the strength of the CIP solution, but they have limitations. They can be covered with mineral scale, they obstruct the pipeline, and they have trouble reading acid concentrations because acid is not as electrically conductive as alkaline. Some of the latest conductivity sensors such as the Foxboro 871FT take care of these problems through enhanced design.

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