The sanitary aspects of producing food and beverage products are of extreme importance. Plants must meet high hygienic standards to avoid a product's degradation and contamination during operation, and plant cleaning must be carried out quickly and thoroughly. The cleaning requirements are best met with Cleaning-in-Place (CIP) systems.
CIP systems offer fast, efficient and reliable cleaning of all types of process plant. It's a method which cleans complete items of plant equipment or pipelines circuits without dismantling the equipment.
CIP systems are divided in differents operations :
1- Flushing in order to eliminate residues
2- Alkaline cleaning operation : alkaline detergents
dissolve fat and proteins, and cleaning where harder
deposits have occured
3- Intermediate water rinse
4- Acidic cleaning operation: for neutralising the caustic
remaining on the surfaces of the plant. The acidic
detergents remove mineral deposits in the equipment
(especially warm areas like in the pasteurizer)
5- Final water rinse: Cold water purges out the residual
acid solution
CIP is a closed system where recirculating cleaning solution is applied (often with nozzles) that cleans, rinses and sanitises equipment. The CIP system is usually automatically controlled and the cleaning sequences are given the optimum timing for efficient cleaning of all parts of the plants.