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  1. Flow sensors
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  4. SM Foodmag Use Cases

SM Foodmag Use Cases

Precise quantities for the perfect taste experience

For over 85 years, Lagenser has been producing and selling both not-from-concentrate juices for direct sale and semi-finished products and basic mixtures for further processing. The company attaches great importance to the highest quality and perfect taste.

To meet both requirements, the individual components, such as pure juice, water and sugar, are combined in a mixing tank in a defined ratio which depends on the respective juice variety. For precise quantity detection, Lagenser Fruchtsäfte uses the SM Foodmag flow meter, which is accurate to the litre. A minimum conductance value of 5 µs/cm is required to ensure the reliability of the magnetic inductive measuring principle and exact dosing of the sugar.

Before the fruit juice is supplied to the customer, it is transported from the mixing tank to a cooling tank. Just before it is collected, the juice is heated to up to 90 °C for 20 seconds via a flash pasteuriser using heat exchange and then cooled down again to ensure optimum quality and shelf life. Here, too, the SM Foodmag reliably detects the flow rate and signals whether the medium has been heated to the desired temperature using its integrated temperature measurement function.

Optimising hot water consumption and improving energy efficiency

For over 130 years, the Leibinger brewery has been brewing various beer specialities that are distinguished by traditional beer craftsmanship, regional raw materials and careful recipes. In order to meet the high quality standards, continuous optimisation and monitoring of the processes is essential.

In order to optimise the brewhouse’s hot water requirements, our customer relies on the SM Foodmag for reliable monitoring of the flow rate and the temperature of the hot water. The hot water reaches media temperatures of between 120 and 140 °C and flows through the pipes at a pressure of 5 bar. While conventional sensors deliver briefly inaccurate measurement results in the event of temperature jumps and peaks, the SM Foodmag remains permanently precise and reliable.

Thanks to the long-term measurement accuracy of the sensor, the brewery can now also carry out energy calculations in order to continuously improve the energy efficiency of the plant.

Durable resistance even in aggressive environmental conditions

For more than 120 years, our customer Bergader has stood for a wide variety of cheese flavours made from regional Alpine and mountain farm milk. Cleaning cycles play a central role in the quality assurance of the various cheese specialities during production.

For this reason, a central CIP cleaning system was installed in a room specially created for this purpose. In addition to the media temperature, the volume comparison of the flow and return is a decisive factor within the cleaning process. If the flow and return do not match or if the return falls below a defined value, this indicates leaks or other problems in the cleaning process.

To ensure clean conditions outside the process, the CIP system is regularly cleaned from the outside with acidic and alkaline cleaning agents. In the past, the housing seals and terminal chambers of the sensors were continuously strained by external cleaning, which in turn led to moisture ingress and subsequent electronic defects. The SM Foodmag retrofitted in the return pipe, on the other hand, withstands the cleaning agents without any problems and impresses with its long-term durability.

Permanently reliable even in extreme vibrations

The Andechser Molkerei product range includes around 150 "Andechser Natur" organic dairy products and cheese varieties. Made from high-quality raw materials in first-class organic and Demeter quality, they are characterised by their full and natural flavour.

In order to ensure consistently high product quality, the sensors used must deliver precise measured values and withstand the challenging production environments over the long term.

A rotary lobe pump is used to transport yoghurt, quark or pudding over 40 metre long pipes from the storage tank to the filler. If the viscous medium is not pumped into the pump quickly enough during suction, cavitation can occur, causing the pipe to deflect by up to 3 centimetres. The originally installed device with a large sensor head including the terminal chamber succumbed to these mechanical stresses after a short time due to its large lever.

By using the SM Foodmag, it was possible to create a reliable long-term solution that is also more attractive in terms of cost and effort than opting for a sensor with a remote evaluation unit or another pump.

Full transparency and quality assurance in shower gel production

A leading manufacturer of personal care products offers a wide range of products, including shower gel. Various raw materials such as saline solutions, colourings and fragrances are added precisely to the water to produce the shower gel.

To dose the individual ingredients, the media from the raw tank farm are fed into a pipe via valves and channelled into a mixer. The SM Foodmag reliably monitors the process both during dosing and in the subsequent filling process. While the current volumetric flow is an indicator of a running and functioning process, the totaliser output shows the filling of the product into the product store. A direct comparison with the previously used scales and Coriolis systems shows that the accuracy of the SM Foodmag fulfils the requirements and therefore proves to be a cost-effective alternative.

The sensor can also show its strengths in the subsequent cleaning process. The individual cleaning phases are reliably detected by means of the conductance value while the detected temperature serves as an indicator of whether the cleaning has reached the required temperature.