In terms of filling machinery and equipment, the manufacturing level of the United States, Germany, Japan, Italy and the United Kingdom is relatively high, and their equipment shows new development trends.
(1) One machine with multiple functions. The same filling equipment can be used for hot filling of tea drinks, coffee drinks, soy milk drinks and other beverages, and can be used for filling glass bottles and polyester bottles.
(2) Large-scale. Filling machinery is developing towards large-scale. In order to adapt to the production of the food and beverage industry and to obtain economies of scale, filling machinery is developing towards high-speed and high-capacity products. The filling speed of carbonated beverage filling machines can reach up to 2,000 cans/minute, and the filling valves reach 165, 144 and 178 respectively; the filling valves of non-carbonated beverage filling machines are 50 to 100, and the filling speed can reach up to 1,500 cans/minute.
(3) High technical content. The whole line has a high level of automatic control and high efficiency, and the online detection device and metering device are fully equipped, which can automatically detect various parameters and measure accurately. At present, high-tech products integrating mechanical, electrical, pneumatic, optical and magnetic properties are constantly emerging.
(4) Simplified structure. The structure of filling machinery tends to be simple and reasonable. Filling machinery manufacturers are committed to simplifying the product structure, reducing the number of parts, improving equipment reliability, reducing costs, and making operation and maintenance more convenient.
1. Basic concept of filling machinery
Filling machine is a machine that pours liquid products into packaging containers according to a predetermined amount
- 1.1 Packaging container of filling machine
The packaging containers of filling machines are currently divided into glass bottles, metal cans, paper containers, plastic bottles, etc. according to their materials; they can also be divided according to the hardness of the packaging containers: any container made of metal, glass, ceramic or plastic that can withstand 15 pounds of downward pressure without deformation and does not leak liquid after being sealed is called a hard container; any container made of lightweight plastic (usually blow-molded or thermoformed) or paperboard and its composite paper material that does not leak liquid after being sealed is called a semi-rigid container; any container made of plastic film, metal foil, plastic composite film or a composite of them is called a non-rigid container. For example, the well-known bag generally requires the filling system to have a bag making device. Usually, the filling system fills a certain volume of liquid into the container produced by the device with a piston.
- 1.2 Filling liquid
For filling liquid, it mainly includes beer, beverages, dairy products, vegetable oils and condiments in the food industry, washing and daily chemical products, mineral oils and pesticides in the chemical industry, but most of them are used in the food industry, especially the beverage manufacturing industry. Filling liquid can be divided into the following three types according to its viscosity.
1.2.1 Fluid
Any liquid that can flow through a circular tube at a certain speed under the action of its own gravity. The flow rate is mainly affected by the viscosity and pressure of the fluid. The general viscosity range is specified as 1 to 100 centipoise, such as wine, juice, milk, soy sauce, etc.
1.2.2 Semifluid
Liquids that can flow in a circular tube only under pressure greater than their own gravity are called semifluids, and their viscosity ranges from 100 to 10,000 centipoise, such as sponge oil, tomato sauce, minced meat, etc.
1.2.3 Viscous fluids
Products with a viscosity exceeding 10,000 centipoise do not fall into the range of fluids and semifluids. Products such as pastes fall into this category.
For low-viscosity liquids, they can be divided into two categories, non-gasified and gasified, depending on whether the liquid contains carbon dioxide gas;
For whether it contains alcohol, it can be divided into soft drinks (non-alcoholic) and hard drinks (containing alcohol). The flow characteristics of the fluid are also affected by factors such as temperature, viscosity, solid particle content, decomposition, surface tension or foaming characteristics.
Beverages, dairy products, and beer are all large-scale production categories, and are also the industries with the strongest demand for packaging machinery and equipment. The rapid development of China's packaging industry and food processing industry requires a large number of high-quality packaging machinery and food processing machinery, which brings great business opportunities to the packaging machinery manufacturing industry.
2. Classification of filling machines
Filling machines are diverse due to different packaging containers, packaging materials and filling processes, and there are many classification methods
- 2.1 Classification by the main movement form of packaging containers
2.1.1 Rotary filling machines
The container to be filled is sent to the filling machine by the conveying system or manually, and the container is driven by the filling machine turntable to rotate around the main vertical axis for continuous filling. When the container rotates for nearly one circle, it is filled, and then sent to the capping machine by the turntable for capping, as shown in Figure 1.
This type of filling machine is most widely used in the food and beverage industry, such as filling soda, juice, beer, and milk. This machine is mainly composed of fluid conveying (i.e., feeding system), container conveying (i.e., feeding system), filling valve, large turntable, transmission system, machine body, automatic control and other parts. Among them, the filling valve is the key to ensure the normal operation of the filling machine.
2.1.2 Linear filling machine
The filling container moves along a straight line and is filled in rows. Whenever a row of empty containers is sent, it is pushed forward by the push plate once. When it is sent to the bottom of the filling pipe, the valve is opened for filling, and the operation is performed intermittently, as shown in Figure 2.
Compared with the rotary filling machine, this type of filling machine has a simpler structure and is easy to manufacture, but it occupies a larger area and is intermittently moving. The improvement of production capacity is also subject to certain restrictions. Therefore, it is generally only used for filling of airless liquid materials, which has great limitations.
- 2.2 Classification by packaging material characteristics
2.2.1 Liquid filling machine
Semi-automatic liquid filling machine, suitable for medicine, daily chemicals, food, pesticides and special industries, is an ideal equipment for filling liquids. Fully automatic quantitative liquid filling machine, suitable for filling various oils, such as lubricating oil and edible oil.
2.2.2 Paste filling machine
Semi-automatic paste filling machine, is an ideal filling and filling equipment for daily chemical industry, pharmaceutical industry, food industry, ink industry and coating industry.
2.2.3 Powder filling machine
Automatic quantitative powder filling machine, suitable for quantitative packaging of powdery and granular materials such as pesticides, veterinary drugs, premixes, additives, milk powder, starch, condiments, enzyme preparations, feed, etc.
2.2.4 Granule filling machine
Granule filling machine, suitable for packaging pesticides, veterinary drugs, seeds, traditional Chinese medicine, feed, desiccant, salt, monosodium glutamate, soup, tea, etc. and free-flowing granular products.
- 2.3 Classification by filling method
2.3.1 Normal pressure filling machine
Normal pressure filling machine is used for filling under atmospheric pressure by liquid weight. This type of filling machine is divided into two types: timed filling and fixed volume filling. It is only suitable for filling low-viscosity liquids without gas, such as milk, wine, etc., as shown in Figure 8.
2.3.2 Pressure filling machine
Pressure filling machine is used for filling under higher pressure than atmospheric pressure. It can also be divided into two types: one is that the pressure in the liquid storage cylinder is equal to the pressure in the bottle, and the liquid flows into the bottle by its own weight, which is called isobaric filling, as shown in Figure 9; the other is that the pressure in the liquid storage cylinder is higher than the pressure in the bottle, and the liquid flows into the bottle by pressure difference. High-speed production lines mostly use this method. Pressure filling machine is suitable for filling gas-containing liquids, such as beer, soda, champagne, etc.
2.3.3 Negative pressure filling machine
Negative pressure filling machine is used for filling when the pressure in the bottle is lower than atmospheric pressure. This filling machine has a simple structure, high efficiency, and a wide range of material viscosity adaptability, such as oil, syrup, fruit wine, etc., as shown in Figure 10.
- 2.4 According to the degree of automation
2.4.1 Manual filling machine
Small-dose filling machine, with the function of paste and liquid filling machine. It has the advantages of simple structure, convenient operation, economical and practical, accurate capacity, etc.
2.4.2 Semi-automatic filling machine
Semi-automatic liquid filling machine, in the filling of liquid, the filling process is completed automatically, mostly used for filling gas-containing liquids.
2.4.3 Fully automatic filling machine
Fully automatic filling machine. It can be divided into: single-machine automatic machine and combined automatic machine (which can include continuous cleaning, filling, capping, labeling, boxing and other processes). Automatic filling is most commonly controlled by mechanical transmission.
