Maintenance-free sterilisation machine

• What was needed: drylin® W profile rail guides, drylin® R linear shafts, polymer rotary table bearings, xiros plastic ball bearings
• Requirements: Like the machine, the bearings work five days a week and must have a long service life. They must function reliably under the use of aggressive chemicals and be particularly lightweight.
• Sector: Packaging industry
• Success for the customer: The lubrication-free plastic bearings guarantee a long service life thanks to their low wear and coefficient of friction. Among other things, they are lightweight, corrosion-free and their clearance is adjustable.

OPTIMA consumer GmbH is a supplier of filling, closing and packaging machines. The globally positioned company offers everything that makes the dosing, filling, packaging and sealing of food, chemical and cosmetic products easier, safer and more economical. As a rule, these are special machines.
For one customer, the machine manufacturer has developed a sterilisation machine for cleaning the interior of canisters. Live cultures, which serve as additives for foodstuffs, are filled in. Absolute sterility must be guaranteed during filling. After initially designing a system for bottles with a capacity of one litre or 250 millilitres, a second system was later developed for five-litre or 25-litre canisters.
The sterilisation machine, which is in operation five days a week, is positioned at the beginning of the packaging line. Its core is a rotary tool. The canisters are clamped in, lifted and rotated 180 degrees. They then pass over the disinfection nozzles, are sprayed, turned back and set down on a belt. At this point, the disinfectant must act for a few seconds, which can be achieved by the filling process or the cycle times. the cycle times. Two 25-litre canisters are handled per minute.
In order to kill any bacteria present in the canisters, liquid chlorine dioxide, which is extremely aggressive, is used for disinfection. For this reason, the chemical resistance of the components is important. But it is also about energy efficiency. Thus, the total weight and the ease of movement of the system play an important role. The heavier the plant, the more sluggish the entire movement process. For this reason, motors and drives are designed smaller if less weight has to be moved. It is therefore clear to the design engineer that, given the complex requirements profile, only plastic can be considered as a material for the lubrication-free bearings.

Our lubrication-free plastic bearings guarantee a long service life thanks to their low wear and coefficient of friction. Among other things, they are lightweight, corrosion-free and their clearance is adjustable. In addition, materials are available that enable applications under water, at high temperatures, in the food sector and/or in aggressive environments.
OPTIMA consumer GmbH also relies on this tribo-optimised polymer technology for plain bearings. Introduced to the market under the name 'iglidur®', they have been intensively researched and improved for 30 years.
In the rotary mould of the steriliser, the suspension of the entire unit consists of a robust drylin® W-linear guide system as a double profile and manual clamp for higher holding forces to fix the position. The absence of lubrication makes the system extremely resistant to dirt. The linear guide is a special part that has been milled to save weight and provided with recesses according to customer requirements. A housing bearing with adjustable clearance proves its efficiency as a bearing.
A polymer rotary table bearing (PRT) is used as a counter bearing to the rotary cylinder, which rotates the individual canisters. A special feature is the space-saving, square flange, which enables direct mounting on flat surfaces. A particularly lightweight drylin® R precision aluminium tube shows its strength as a counter support. Linear bearing housings such as the shaft end block and floating bearing ensure in combination that the tube cannot rotate freely. The chemical-resistant and low-wear material iglidur® J is used as the material in all sliding elements.
The designer also relies on the material 'iglidur® X' for a large number of his projects. It has an extremely high chemical and temperature resistance of up to 250 degrees Celsius.