Rinsing Unique Bottles and Containers

As we've discussed before, two industries that are especially likely to use container cleaning equipment are the Food and Beverage Industry and the Pharmaceutical Industry.  Container cleaning in these industries is often a necessity to avoid product contamination.  Combined with sanitary filling machines, rinsing equipment can help keep the packaging process uncontaminated as well.  

While most similar pharmaceutical products will be packaged in similar containers, many marketing teams in the Food and Beverage industry will attempt to use the package to differentiate their product from similar products.  Alcoholic beverages are filled into bottles shaped like skyscrapers and skulls.  Maple syrups are poured into maple leaf shaped containers and tin cans.  Many of these facilities will use an inverting rinsing machine to clean bottles and containers before they move to the liquid fillers, capping machines, labelers and other packaging equipment.  The problem that arises when running unique or oddly shaped bottles through an inverting rinsing machine is keeping the bottles secure and stabile.

Normally the machine will come equipped with soft pad bottle grippers or pads that close prior to the inverting of the bottle, grasping the container and holding it steady as it is turned upside down over a rinse basin.  Once inverted, the inside of the bottles will be blasted with clean air or rinsed with water or other cleaning solutions.  The debris is blown or washed from the inside of the bottle into the rinse basin.  However, certain bottles make the inverting process much more difficult.  Heavy glass bottles, odd shaped bottles or even top heavy or bottom heavy bottles may require extra support during the flip.  Custom bottle grippers can be designed to add support where necessary on a container, allowing marketing teams to design packages without worrying about the limitations of the packaging machinery.

In some cases, inverting the bottles simply may not be cost effective or feasible.  In other cases, the container material may be difficult to stabilize without doing harm to the bottle.  Even in these rare cases, there are other options available to a packager to ensure that containers are cleaned before product is introduced and the bottles reach the other packaging machinery.  Air rinsing machines can be manufactured with a special nozzle that both blasts containers with clean air and vacuums up the debris loosened by that blast of air.  Automatic bottle vacuums remove the need to invert the bottles over a rinse basin and, in most cases, can be added right to a packaging line prior to the filling equipment.  

While more or less required in some industries, container cleaning equipment may be found in almost every industry that packages a product, as offering clean, uncontaminated products to a customer is something almost every packager would like to do.  If you have questions regarding container cleaning equipment, including inverting rinsing machines and bottle vacuums, contact a Packaging Specialist toll free today at 1-888-393-3693.