Cooling Tunnel

Cooling Tunnel

Producers of food and beverage products fill containers with hot product to kill bacteria, increase the shelf life of the product, and decrease the viscosity of the product, making the filling process more efficient. After the hot fill product and pasteurizing fast effective product cooling is required in order to maintain the product taste, appearance and other important characteristics that are important to your products market potential. The Konek Technology tunnel cooler is designed for cooling various liquid products after the hot filling and pasteurizing process has been completed. This cooling system is used to cool down the PET bottles, glass bottle and cans after hot beverage filling.

The cooling tunnel can be divided into various zones operating at different temperatures. Its working-process can be divided into three stages: circulating hot-water spray-cooling, warm-water pre-cooling and cold-water cooling. The cooling-heating temperature can be regulated according to the requirements of the user. As per the process requirements, the temperature of heating, insulation and pre-cooling sections can be accurately controlled by PID controlling pneumatic membrane regulating valve, and the time of heat preservation and sterilization can be adjusted by frequency conversion speed regulation. The latter, at least, can rely on the Krones LinaCool to provide just that: With its sophisticated spraying nozzle system, it cools all products gently down to ambient temperature, in order to avoid distorting their taste or colour. We adopt lots of nozzles inside the machine which can efficiently spray on the bottle products. Each deck of our tunnel coolers is equipped with active spraying using full-cone clamp nozzles to ensure a homogenous distribution of water. The hot product is run through a stainless steel tunnel which is fitted with a series of nozzles that spray cool water onto the product. Inside the machine, the bottles and the cans lie on a plastic chain and thanks to an external gear motor go forward in the various sections encountering the upper showers, at different temperatures, until reaching the exit. A zone of moderate temperature water can be implemented at the infeed end to prevent thermal shock and cracking in glass containers. Besides, in each machine section, there are independent cycling pumps for us to control the temperature accurately. The primary cooling/warming source used is water, which is recirculated within each zone. For the reduction in temperature, water from the heating and cooling sections is used, availing of recirculation pumps. No new water is added to the system unless the temperature of the water reservoir differs from the preset temperature threshold. Various cooling sources enable low energy consumption. A cooling tower, fresh water, spring water or chiller are usually used as an external cooling source. The cooling tunnel features the cooling unit, fan system and conducts to recirculate the cooled air inside the tunnel.

Because after filled, the bottle’s body and bottle’s neck will speckle by the some juice more or less, so the spray cooling tunnel is also can rinse the filled bottle with the circular water, it work as a rinser too.

Cooling tunnels are designed from individual modules that can be added or withdrawn easily. Each section of the cooling tunnel has hinged stainless steel doors through which operation can be observed and product removed.

The Konek Technology cooling tunnel is designed for expedite the cooling of product in containers on hot fill production lines. Determining the right type and configuration of tunnel cooler requires careful analysis of the products to be processed. Our cooler tunnel is fully customized according to each customer’s demand. The tunnel is designed by our experience team, which is of high durability and of high performance.

It is suitable for cooling all kinds of bottled or canned hot beverage or carbonated beverage. Cooling Tunnel is ideal for the filled products such as sauces, energy drinks, juices, jam and etc in cans or glass bottles.

Features & Benefits

• Whole process of cooling is fully automatic.
• The hygienic and low-maintenance spray system
• The dual extractable filters to protect spray nozzle pump
• Effective and an independent spraying system in each zone
• High-flow polypropylene nozzles fitted on stainless steel pipes with quick disassembly
• The filters to protect spray nozzle pump
• Save energy thanks to flexible integration of various cooling sources
• Re-cooling water to ensure minimum water wastage
• Minimized heat and liquid carryover results in noticeable energy and water savings.
• Stainless steel hygienic design and fabrication.
• Flat side walls and sloped floors facilitate easy cleaning.
• Thermometer and water pressure meter also equipped.
• Outstanding access for cleaning and maintenance
• Side doors and removable top covers are provided for periodic maintenance
• Integrated automation system controlled by a PLC.
• Touchscreen Human Machine Interface (HMI) for individual zone control and consumption measurements
• Continuous belts available in polypropylene or stainless steel.
• Overload protecting device in the main engine to protect conveyor system effectively.
• Variable frequency control of all conveyor motors
• Configurable according to operational requirements thanks to the modular design system.
• Compact design for optimal space utilization

Options

• Available in single or double deck configurations.
• Water cooling unit with chiller
• Centrifugal pumps in stainless steel
• Water blower (To dry the container after cooling stage.)
• Thermal insulation layer
• Can be equipped with automatic filtering system.