RINSING, FILLING & CAPPING MACHINE

Bottle Filling:

Before filling, freshly manufactured plastic bottles are rinsed and inverted from where they go for filling on a rotary bottle filler. The water flows from the filler bowl into the bottles via Ventra flow valves. These valves use an airlock method for accurate filling. The variation is no more than 5mm. When liquid reaches the end of the valve sleeve, air cannot escape. Pressure is created at the top of the bottle, and no more liquid can enter. The airlock method provides consistent, repetitive filling and reduced product loss. The fillers are available in a wide range of configurations and are adaptable to a variety of capping systems.

IS : 14543 - 1998 (Specification for Packaged Drinking Water) prescribes the hygienic practices to be followed in respect of collecting water, its treatment, bottling, storage, packaging, transport, distribution and sale for direct consumption , so as to guarantee a safe, hygienic and wholesome product.

The bottles are generally capped using roll-on type plastic caps, with pilfer proof rings.

A Typical Filling Line Structure:

The different modules of the machine are:

a. INFEED AIR / SLAT CONVEYOR

Bottles blown from the blow molding machine are in feed through the in feed conveyor which can be a Air conveyor or a Slat conveyor. Air conveyors are generally used at operating speeds of 40BPM and more whereas Slat conveyors are used at Lower operating speeds. These Air conveyors can be interlocked with the bottle dislodging conveyor of the blow molding machine to achieve complete automation. Slat conveyors cannot be used for this purpose. The use of air conveyors are generally recommended because the empty bottles are very light in weight and there are chances that the bottle may fall on the conveyor during forward motion causing other bottles to fall on a slat conveyor and hence hamper the further process of filling machine.

b. RINSING

These bottles are then lifted by mechanical arms to the rinsing section, the rinser is a system comprising of a rotating table with upward lifted Value the bottle are inverted at this section and a jet of pressurized water is passed in the bottle, the jet of water creates equivalent pressure inside the bottle and ensures that the bottle is rinsed. The rinsing is done with Product water and hence the machine is pre programmed to ensures usage of only required amount of this water. The rinser has a feature of No Bottle No rinse which ensures un necessary wastage of water. The rinsed water is recycled to max. of 2 to 3 times and then drained off. There are no. of rinser heads in the rinser depending upon the capacity of the machine. Since this process is done without human interference it ensures hygiene application.

c. FILLING

The bottle is then passed on to the filling section; the inverted bottles are again brought back to the original condition for Filling purpose. The system uses gravity fill technique for filling. No. of heads are maintained for filling depending on the capacity of the machine. The water flows from the filler bowl into the bottles via Ventra flow valves. These valves use an airlock method for accurate filling. The variation is no more than 5mm. When liquid reaches the end of the valve sleeve, air cannot escape. Pressure is created at the top of the bottle, and no more liquid can enter. The airlock method provides consistent, repetitive filling and reduced product loss.

d. CAPPING

The filled bottles then pass on to the capping section. The capping section contains a rotating head which rotates the cap on the bottle and in the mean while presses it down. The caps are held by a mechanism at a 60 degree angle which helps the bottle in transit to place the cap on it. This cap is rotated and threaded to the neck of the cap along with the pilfer proof rings.

In some machines there is a vibratory cap hopper placed on top of the capper section where in the caps are indexed and fed one by one in the cap chute, it some times becomes difficult for the operator as he has to reach the hopper which is placed on the top of the machine to fill in the caps and since the holding capacity of the hopper is less he has to do it again and again moreover online disinfection of caps in this method is also not possible due to lack of space and speed constraints. Cap orientation is also an problem with this mechanism almost 1 out of 20 caps come in inverted direction and hence the cap are damaged. In modern and high speed machines the cap hopper is place at the level of the out feed conveyor height and a cap elevator is provided to elevate the caps along with the indexer which orients the position of the caps so that the cap come in exact desired positions and do not invert. Online disinfection is also possible since the chute provides lot of space. Dry disinfection is done either by exposing the caps to UV or Ozone gas jet & Wet disinfection i.e. rinsing is done by water jet both of the operations can be done online.

e. OUT FEED CONVEYOR

The capped bottles are then automatically transferred to the out feed conveyor which are generally SLAT conveyors. Air conveyors cannot work out here since the bottle have gained weight after filling. The slat conveyor then transports the filled bottle to its final destination the bottle stacker or turn table, but before that the bottle has to go through some other steps which are mentioned below.

f. INSPECTION

The capped bottles then go to online inspection, which is done manually by an operator who looks at the bottle when it passes through a illuminated screen called as the inspection lamp. This screen is white and is lit with white fluorescent tubes. The light reflects on any foreign matter floating or settled in the bottle and thus becomes visible. Such bottles are taken out of the conveyor manually since presence of such matter in the bottles is not permissible and does not adhere to the quality standards. In case repetitive bottles contain such matter the filling process is stopped and adequate measurers are taken to rectify the same.

RFC lines from Speeds ranging from 30 Bottles per minute to 400 Bottles per minute are available.