Isolation Valve for Sweets Manufacture

A sweets manufacturer making a variety of iconic sweets use dextrose in their application. Dextrose is a simple sugar made from corn or wheat that is chemically identical to glucose. It is often used as a sweetener in baking products and is found in processed foods and corn syrup.

Choosing the right Isolation Valve

To transport and control the flow of the dextrose being conveyed at 1 bar through the pipelines to various floors up above feeding to different bins, the company use an isolation valve.

Their choice of isolation valve is a manual Pinch Valve with a food quality liner. Isolation valves are a key component in any powder handling system as they are used to manage and stop the flow of powder into a particular area of the system. The two Pinch Valves on this site typically operate with one in the closed position and the other in the fully open position to direct the powder, protect in emergencies and facilitate safe maintenance. Isolation valves are also known as shut off valves, on-off valves or stop valves.

Pinch Valve used within this application: OV080.04L.30M

OV model, manually operated via hand wheel, aluminium body, aluminium flanges PN10/16, food quality EPDM sleeve.

Reliability with Isolation Valves from AKO UK

The valve isolating the granulated dexcrose powder is not a frequently used line. The valve opens once per day, and can stay closed for up to 1 week.

An old engineer who used to work at the sweets manufacturing company had previously used Pinch Valves, and wanted to install them at this site years ago because of their reliability and excellent performance. The company have now been using Pinch Valves for 50-60 years and have never felt the need to switch to a different valve type because the Pinch Valve does such a good job.

AKO UK Isolation Pinch Valves Vs. Ball Valves

The sweets manufacturer have had problems with other conventional types such as ball valves, which have caused clogging and wear issues. The company came up with the Pinch Valve being a better solution for this application because of it’s self cleaning.

Overall, the company are very happy with the two Pinch Valves and they only need to replace the sleeve every 10 years. They are impressed by the availability of spares and how quickly they can receive replacements from AKO UK. The AKO Pinch Valves have reduced down time and are a much more quality product, compared with the previously used ball valves.