Greener production lines for better bottom lines
Everyone in business wants to help the environment. Although aseptic bottling requires the use of natural resources, at GEA Procomac we do everything we can to limit any negative effect our systems have on the environment. But there has to be more to it than that. For being green to be sustainable, for it to really make a difference long term, it needs to make commercial sense. It is our aim to help you make money by being green, today and in the future too.
Recycle … Recover … Reduce
ECOSpin PAA Sterilization Technology
As the name suggests ECOSpin is an aseptic bottle sterilization technology designed with the environment in mind. It focuses on saving water and saving energy, both vitally important for the protection of the environment, but both also key factors in reducing processing costs for you.
The system sterilizes and rinses bottles and caps within a class 100 Microbiological Isolator that provides a physical barrier between the external environment and the microbiological controlled area. As well as keeping the operator safe by avoiding any contact with the sterile zone, the overpressure inside the Microbiological Isolator is created by independent energy-saving active filtration stations equipped with redundant final HEPA filters. These keep power usage, and your costs, to a minimum.
After sterilization the bottle is rinsed with sterile water. GEA Procomac has recently introduced a new rinsing concept based on a full-cone, non-penetrating nozzle that maximizes rinsing efficacy. This nozzle has a pulsing spraying mode that uses the absolute minimum of water, again reducing your costs while protecting the environment too.
ECOSpin uses Peracetic Acid as the sterilization medium. However, the system incorporates a closed loop system to recover the PAA after use and return it to the process. This not only significantly limits the need to dispose of the chemical it also helps you keep raw material costs down.
The ABF concept
Aseptic Blow Filling (ABF) is a completely new concept for aseptic filling: it’s the world’s first rotary aseptic blow moulding machine with an integrated aseptic filler and capper.
The key principle of ABF is to sterilise the preform not the bottle, then blow the preform with sterile air, in a sterile environment, to maintain the sterility of the whole process. Sterilizing the preform in this way has operational benefits, for example it allows you to produce ultra-lightweight bottles that would otherwise be deformed during sterilization, thereby minimising your material cost and use of fossil resources. But sterilizing the preform also means that you use less Hydrogen Peroxide, the bottles don’t need rinsing, and you reduce your energy consumption too. It also means that the ABF system needs fewer operators and is much more compact than traditional systems allowing you to release floor space and human resources for other uses.
GEA – designed with the environment and your profit in mind.