Vincor International's Quebec bottling plant is saving water and energy after installing a System Plast NG conveyor chain and a Nolu-S wear track from Power Transmission Solutions.
The so-called "dry wine" bottling procedure - pun intended, presumably - eliminates soap-and-water lubrication and has improved production volumes, sanitation standards, reliability, maintenance costs and noise levels, according to Sustainable Plant.com. The installation led to a production increase of roughly 2 percent, or around $26,000 in yearly output. This on its own paid for the upgrade to the conveyor in the first year of operation.
The System Plant NG chain is made of PBT thermoplastic that has the lowest coefficient of friction in its range. The Nolu-S wear track ia made of a unique compound of UHMW-PE, which is a solid lubricant. The reduced friction from the chain and wear track combined help reduce the conveyor's energy requirements by up to 30 percent.
A variety of problems with the old line, including wet labels, poor reliability and the expense of soap led the wine maker to seek an alternative. The purchase of soap and water alone added $3,400 to the annual cost of running the bottling line.
In July, the Coca-Cola Company announced that it had developed a beverage process water recovery system, piloted at facilities in India and Mexico, that can reduce a plant’s water use by up to 35 percent.
The recovery system reuses water for selected beverage operations, such as clean-in-place and bottle washing, rather than treating and discharging it, the company said. The system takes highly treated process water and treats it further using a variety of existing technologies, including biological treatment in a membrane bioreactor, ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis, ozonation and ultraviolet disinfection. Coca-Cola is reviewing internal plans to roll out this technology to its bottling partners and across its bottling facilities in 2013 and beyond.
