Titanium in the food industry
Relevance
The latest technologies in the food industry require the use of alternative structural materials, the replacement and improvement of obsolete units. The specificity of modern food equipment requires numerous extremely scarce materials: non-ferrous metals, stainless steels, etc. It is very difficult to satisfy the need for them. Machinery and equipment are usually made of low-alloy steels, which have low strength under the action of aggressive food environments. This leads to a significant decrease in the operational stability of the equipment, an increase in material costs for repairs. Corrosion protection of metals in the food industry is of paramount importance.
Technology features
Food preparation technology is a complex biochemical process. Very strict sanitary and hygienic requirements for equipment. Failure to comply can result in significant loss of valuable food or change in quality. In light of these problems, titanium is an almost ideal material that meets all requirements. The study of the economic feasibility of using titanium alloys was carried out at the All-Union Scientific Research and Experimental Design Institute of Food Engineering (VNIIEKI prodmash), the Institute of Metallurgy of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Titanium, a number of industry institutes and SKB.
Comparative user experience
The food industry and food engineering have accumulated extensive experience in the manufacture and operation of titanium alloy equipment. There are a large number of examples taken from foreign practice on the long-term use of various titanium equipment in the food industry. For example, in the USA, titanium is used to produce boilers that are used to prepare brine, tomato products and sauces. Tests have shown that titanium is not affected by food acids. Refrigerators made of titanium make it possible to reduce the consumption of refrigerants and use high pressures. The firm «Heinz» (USA) has extensive experience in the use of titanium in the food industry. About three hundred brands of different nickel and stainless steel alloys were compared. But in conventional canning industries, they showed little endurance when exposed to industrial solutions that contain sodium chloride and acetic acid.
Titanium hardware
As a result of the tests carried out, new recommendations were developed for the storage and transportation of food products, as well as the manufacture of equipment for processing vegetables using titanium alloys. In Soviet times, the use of titanium was widely used in the wine industry. The Institute of Titanium, the All-Union Research Institute of Winemaking and Viticulture «Magarach», as well as the All-Union Research and Experimental Design Institute of Food Engineering determined a list of equipment that was made of titanium, namely:
· centrifuges, vessels for storage and aging, as well as processing of wine materials;
measured tanks;
· transport capacities;
barrels;
dispensers;
devices intended for processing;
filters.
The products made of titanium alloys and having passed numerous tests should also include disks that cut chocolate; turbo blower wheels for pumping saturator gas; heads of milk filling machines made of pressed titanium powder; malting sieves in the brewing industry and much more.
Economic effect
The positive side of the use of titanium containers has given its advantages: its weight has significantly decreased, the efficiency of loading and unloading operations has increased, the strength of the container has increased, and the costs of transportation, repair and maintenance have decreased. These pluses were reflected in the overall economic effect of production. For titanium tanks with a capacity of 25 m 3, recommendations for use and technical documentation were developed at the plants. Aging and transportation of various fine wines and brandy spirits requires the use of multifunctional containers. Deliveries of these tanks are carried out abroad and give a significant technical and economic effect. In 1969, the first ten industrial containers for storing cognac spirit and color were manufactured at the Tbilisi Brandy Factory of the Samtrest plant. Their operation continues to the present day. Later, the Smelyansky Machine-Building Plant developed drawings and technical documentation for containers of different capacities for wine products.
Zeer
This is a welded structure with an equilateral trapezium in cross section, consisting of rods assembled around the circumference. Absolutely all the details of the zeer are made of titanium grade VT1−0. The study was carried out by the Simferopol plant of wine-making equipment, where the stacks were made of titanium alloy. The production of valuable products from waste occupies a large volume of industrial output in winemaking. The production of tartaric acid is characterized by the presence of aggressive environments. For this, a titanium alloy vacuum apparatus was manufactured, which was successfully tested in the tartaric acid workshop of the Tbilisi Samtrest production plant. During several years of operation, the absence of corrosion of the material and scale has been proven. This significantly improves heat transfer and increases the return on the evaporated solution by a factor of 3. The resulting product is of high concentration and quality.
Pipelines
All industries in the food industry use a huge amount of liquid products that require transportation, filtration and pumping. Previously, glass pipelines made at the Vinogradny winery were widely used. They are hygienic, convenient, but do not always meet the requirements of operation. Due to temperature fluctuations, they are destroyed, require more frequent cleaning, as they are covered with precipitation. But the industry does not stand still, many kilometers of pipelines were made of titanium, very economical, requiring no maintenance during many years of use. The Titanium Institute and the Nezhensky Mechanical Plant put into production prototypes of a titanium fan cylinder for the VPO-20 press. Titanium equipment is supplied as a set: pipelines and valves, pumps and filters. True, this is quite expensive equipment, but its high cost pays off with a long service life, reliability, and also the biological inertness of the material from which it is made. An example is the hydrolysis plant in the city of Khorsk, Khabarovsk Territory, where titanium valves manufactured in 1969 at the Penztyazhpromarmatura plant are successfully operated to this day.
Separators
The increase in the performance of liquid separators for the separation of multiphase systems (fruit juices, yeast suspension, wine, nutrient media in the medical industry) is directly related to the increase in the speed of rotation of the drum and its diameter. With an increase in centrifugal forces, stress can arise in parts that can lead to destruction. Since titanium has a specific gravity half that of steel and a higher margin of safety, its use for the production of such separators is much more expedient. This is especially true in the production of starch, where liquid media are highly corrosive. Therefore, in this production, it is best to use liquid separator drums made of titanium alloys, replacing the existing stainless steel separators with them.
Fish industry
Entire floating processing plants are involved in fish processing. All mechanisms of machines directly related to processing are in constant contact with sea water, therefore they must have special corrosion resistance. The use of mechanisms made of titanium alloys in this production is an ideal solution.
sugar industry
This industry has extensive experience in the application of titanium equipment and pipelines. Titanium tubes, which are used in evaporators, with their long-term operation have proved not only the high corrosion resistance of the material, but also made it possible to increase the concentration of the acid solution, which is used for periodic descaling. This reduced equipment downtime and reduced labor costs.
Other industries
At the Belgorod citric acid plant, evaporators made of titanium alloys have been used for three years. During this period of operation, they did not corrode and did not require repair. At the maize plant in Beslan, capacitive equipment is successfully operated, which is made of titanium grade VT1−0. At the distillery in Melitopol, a carbon column made of titanium VT1−0 is successfully operating, designed to filter vodka. It was specially designed for these purposes by the Titanium Institute. Also, the Institute of Titanium, together with the Leningrad Institute «Rospishchepromavtomatika», designed, manufactured, tested and transferred to mass production washing heads made of titanium alloy VT1−0. They can clean almost any container within minutes. The use of a titanium alloy could ensure the lightness of the head, its exceptional resistance to disinfectant solutions. Titanium Institute together with the Odessa Technological Institute. Lomonosov, a construction was developed from a titanium alloy for sherrying wines in a stream, or accelerating the maturation of sherry. And since this process is too sensitive to the slightest presence of foreign ions, the use of titanium for these purposes turned out to be the most acceptable, so that the sherry produced was only of high quality.
Essential oil production
Specialists of the Simferopol Institute of Essential Oil Crops, together with the Institute of Titanium, developed and manufactured a pilot column for the production of iris oil from titanium alloy VT1−0. This was due to the need to improve the quality of manufactured products, since the old steel column could not meet the requirements of production.
Provider
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