With the Innosept Asbofill ESL KHS is now launching a linear filling machine that has been specially developed for the bottling of extended shelf life or ESL beverages for the cold chain.
With the Innosept Asbofill ESL KHS is now launching a linear filling machine that has been specially developed for the bottling of extended shelf life or ESL beverages for the cold chain. In doing so KHS is finally closing the gap between classic and aseptic filling technology. In developing the new series KHS made specific use of its expertise in the field of aseptic technology. Many of the components built into the Innosept Asbofill ESL thus correspond to those which have been in use for many years in tried-and-tested Innosept Asbofill ABF linear filling equipment.
The Innosept Asbofill ESL is extremely flexible in its range of applications. Milk, mixed milk, coffee and yoghurt beverages, fruit juices, and teas – in other words, all types of beverage sold through the cold chain – can be bottled using ESL technology. It can also process products containing pulp and/or chunks. The same flexibility is shown in the range of plastic containers that can be filled here; quadratic, rectangular, and oval bottles can all be processed, the only requirement being that the size of the neck ring is identical.
As with aseptic systems there are two types of machine available for ESL products. While the Innosept Asbofill ESL 611 has a throughput of up to 12,000 plastic bottles holding between 0.1 and 0.75 liters per hour, the Innosept Asbofill ESL 711 fills 0.25 to 2.0-liter bottles at the same rate. Both of these ESL machines can also be supplied in the TWIN version. Here, instead of investing in two single machines the TWIN doubles capacities while cutting costs, as many of the components central to the system are implemented just once in this concept.
One of the chief advantages of the Innosept Asbofill ESL is the exceptionally small size of the sanitary room, this being 0.7 m³ in the ESL 611 and just 1.2 m³ in the ESL 711. This in turn has the benefit of cost-effective maintenance and fast cleaning. The sterilization, filling, and sealing processes take place in different housings, with a partition separating the different areas. Bottles and caps are sterilized according to the process of dry sterilization.
The plastic bottles are filled in the classic manner using two-stage, free-flow filling valves, into which pulp nozzles can be integrated if required. This all takes place under the best possible hygienic conditions, since the bottle mouths are not pressed and sealed against the filling valves during filling. Precise fill levels are ensured by the principle of volumetric, electromagnetic induction flowmetering. If products containing chunks are to be processed, a separate dosing unit can be incorporated upstream of the free-flow filler. Both seals and screw caps can be applied as closures. Even if only one of the above closure systems is selected, as is usual, both modules can be optionally fitted into one machine.
All told, the new, extremely compact, operator-friendly Innosept Asbofill ESL series of machines not only gives customers top product safety and reliability but also extremely high flexibility with planned product changeovers.
Source: KHS
