Conveyor cleaning without chemicals or water
October 1st 2004

Cleaning conveyors is a difficult task; downtime is expensive and the use of water can be detrimental to the process as can chemical use.Osprey Deepclean explains how steam cleaning can be the answer

Countless numbers of industrial conveyors are in use, in many physical variations, carrying thousands, if not millions of manufactured or processed products every day – often in very demanding environments:manufacturing, food processing, the hi-tech industries, to name but a few.

Spillages from product contents, overspray from coatings, sugars, dust, fine powders and grease: these all combine to make conveyor cleaning a frequent necessity. But unfortunately cleaning regimes vary, as do the demands of the production flow: it is not readily convenient nor practical to halt production, dismantle a section of the conveyor line and clean it prior to re-assembly and re-commissioning as part of the production process once again.

In many environments water cannot be used freely (due to electric switches and controls) so that any cleaning is limited to sporadic wiping or spraying of the belt with sanitising solutions or alcohol. All this can achieve is to remove visual soiling in localised areas. In meat preparation areas water will brown the meat, limiting cleaning to downtime periods only, meaning that very often meat residue remains on the conveyor for extended periods of time.

Conveyor cleaning in any meaningful way has therefore been reduced to taking place only in extended periods of production downtime such as holiday shutdowns in the middle of the Summer, or over Christmas.This may be a welcome bonus for cleaning contractors, but in the food processing industry for one, this practice is unacceptable if hygiene standards are to be maintained.The result is that conveyor cleaning is frequently carried out as highly paid overtime.

A way of reducing production downtime and inflated labour costs, yet at the same time maintaining high standards of hygiene as a norm throughout the production cycle is to use steam.

Steam is an immensely powerful cleaning agent.Heated under pressure to 180°C, the so-called ‘dry’ steam available from modern steam cleaning equipment kills bacteria in an instant, degreases and sanitises in one easy operation. Nor does steam cleaning require chemicals in order to be effective, and this is an important consideration, especially for food processors. Although portable steam cleaning equipment can do the job, it does require labour and can be physically demanding over even relatively short periods of time.

Nor is it always convenient to shut down the conveyor and thus halt production while the steam cleaning machine operator gets to work. So once again we are back to extended periods between cleaning.

The obvious solution is to clean the conveyor belt as it goes along.

This will at least maintain a high standard of cleanliness and hygiene on the belt itself during use, and attempts have been made to address this need in recent times, but these solutions often require built-in steam generating equipment that can be both large and costly.

An innovative approach has been taken by OspreyDeepclean whose Conveyor Cleaning solutions enable modified portable dry steam generating equipment to be used with special belt cleaning heads that are specifically designed either for slatted or flat belts, or for the more difficult to clean mesh belts.

This is achieved by utilising a motorised brush and steam jets on flat belt conveyors, together with a vacuum attachment that leaves the belt sanitised and dry for continuous use; and a powerful Jet Unit for dislodging debris from and sanitising mesh belts.

The Standard Portable Belt Unit simply drops onto the conveyor belt and once connected to the steam generator, is ready to clean.The Multi-Width model is designed to work on certain flexible belts of differing widths. In which case a portable mounting plate is inserted under the belt onto which the Osprey brush locates.

Osprey Deepclean Conveyor Cleaning machines have been specially modified for dual use. For such is the power and versatility of the equipment that not only can it operate the belt cleaning system, but because it is portable,may be utilised independently as a steam cleaner wherever it is needed elsewhere on the premises.

The portable machines clean and sanitise a huge variety of even intricate surfaces, such as in and around electrical wiring, where manual cleaning could not hope to reach, even if it was safe to do so.The few droplets of condensed steam that remain soon evaporate and are not considered harmful to electric switches or circuits.This makes portable dry steam machines ideal for other production units such as drilling or milling machines that can become very clogged by grease and swarf. In these circumstances, a little detergent might be useful to assist in the degreasing process. Needless to say, factory walls, floors and preparation tables can all be successfully steam cleaned as well.

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