Cooling Conveyors Help Molten Products Set
Like any other product, molten substances need to be packaged and prepared for the end consumer. The challenge is that the molten substances, in their final form, will be solid, such as candles, deodorants and other similar products, but will be packaged as a liquid. In order to fill molten products, the solids will be heated to a melting point, at which time they can be sent through a filling machine and into the jars, bottles or other containers used by the consumer. In many cases, these heated products will need time to cool between the filling and sealing phases of packaging, to protect against inconsistent settling and damage to containers, caps or the seal on the product. This cooling phase can be achieved by employing a cooling conveyor between the fill and the seal.
The cooling conveyor itself can take many different forms depending on the product, bottles, caps, time necessary to solidify and many other factors. A cooling conveyor may just be an extension of the main transfer conveyor, allowing a short span of time to pass before the products move through the capping machine. But more often than not, an extended period of dwell time will be necessary to allow the product to solidify and the packaging process to continue without the risk of damage. In these cases, the cooling conveyor can take a number of different forms.
Serpentine conveyors are a common method for cooling product, using a wide conveyor with belts running in opposite directions. This allows the product to travel back and forth on the serpentine conveyor, greatly increasing dwell time versus a simple straight line cooling conveyor. When space is limited, tiered serpentine conveyors can also add time by using vertical space. Tiered serpentine conveyors simply use layers of wide conveyor belt to allow the filled containers to move not only back and forth on the conveyor, but also up and down to different serpentine layers, before eventually exiting the cooling section of the conveyor and continuing on to the capping or sealing machine.
Of course, the dwell time for cooling molten products adds to the time necessary to complete the packaging process as a whole, which can negatively impact efficiency for those trying to prepare large numbers of products. To counter this loss of efficiency, cooling conveyors can be equipped with fan cooling systems to assist in the solidifying process. These fan systems simply speed up the hardening and settling of the liquid so they can more quickly move to the next phase of packaging without negative effects.
Custom cooling conveyors can be manufactured to fit just about any need for those packaging molten products, and the speed of the conveyors is simple to adjust, meaning dwell time can be changed for different products or container sizes. To learn more about cooling conveyors and the best solution for a specific packaging project, simply contact a Packaging Specialist at Liquid Packaging Solutions today.