Greater efficiency in juice production through automated turbidity monitoring

In the application described here, the fruit is pressed and the medium is then processed directly in a centrifuge. In this process, undesirable solids are separated from the medium and the final product is pumped into a storage container.
Because the Mosterei Billing does not use additives of any kind and still aims to offer its customers juices with a consistent appearance, the solid content in the final product and the associated optical turbidity must be as constant as possible.

To obtain juices of high quality with a constant turbidity, the medium must be continuously monitored during the centrifugation process. At the Mosterei Billing, this was previously performed manually via the sight glass.

This required the attention of the operator throughout the centrifugation process. Consequently, other processes such as the operation of the fruit press could not be performed in parallel by the same person. Moreover, a certain fluctuation in turbidity could not be reliably ruled out because of the subjective nature of monitoring juice through the sight glass.

Automated turbidity monitoring with the ITM-51 turbidity sensor from Anderson-Negele permits the reliable measurement of the product quality without having to invest the time required for optical checks at the sight glass. When the product reaches a defined turbidity, the sensor sends a signal to the centrifuge control and a solids ejection process is started. Because this automated process frees up the system operator to work on upstream and downstream processes during the separation process, a considerable increase in efficiency can be achieved during production.

In a preliminary test of the fruit juices, the turbidities were measured to determine if they were sufficient for process control by means of a turbidity sensor. The compact size of the sensor and the option of a remote version convinced the customer to automate its turbidity measurement.