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New Blender Upgrade Boosts Entire Soda Filling Operation

By adopting Bevcorp’s new MicrO2 system, Admiral Beverage simplified deaeration, optimized blending, and sped up both filling and changeovers.

The MicrO2 blends and deaerates product upstream of Admiral’s bottle filler, reducing foaming and speeding the filling operation.
The MicrO2 blends and deaerates product upstream of Admiral’s bottle filler, reducing foaming and speeding the filling operation.

Admiral Beverage Corp. is among the largest suppliers of carbonated soft drinks (CSD) in the western United States. Opening in Wyoming in 1947, it has grown to three large facilities supplying carbonated and still beverages, bottled water, and fountain mixes to multiple distributors throughout the mountain and western states and Alaska. As that growth continues in an ever-expanding marketplace, the company continuously seeks ways to increase its already significant productivity.

In 2017, Admiral contacted Bevcorp to explore updating the software in the 22-year-old, earlier model Micro blenders on its PET bottle and can filling lines. In the ensuing conversations, Bevcorp introduced Admiral management to the new MicrO2 blender it had developed and suggested that Admiral might be a valuable beta site for the new technology. The system limits dissolved Oxygen (DO) to reduce foaming, which in turn allows the line to run faster. Faster speeds result in more throughput and reduced costs per unit, as well as the correlating reduction in energy costs by not having to refrigerate ingredients.

“We immediately agreed,” says Dave Willard, Admiral’s vice president of production. “It was obvious that the new system they described could provide us with significantly higher productivity while simplifying production and reducing costs.  Once it was installed, it was quickly confirmed that was the case, and two weeks later I called Bevcorp and told them I was budgeting for another MicrO2 system for our can filling line. Two weeks after that I called again and told them not to wait, but to build that second system immediately.”

Both lines have been operating continuously with the MicrO2 blenders ever since. 

Design advantages
The MicrO2 design turns traditional blending/deaeration procedure on its head. Whereas traditional systems deaerate water prior to blending, MicrO2 deaerates the fully blended product prior to carbonation instead of only deaerating the water. Traditional methods introduce DO into the product mix in the syrup.

This difference enables the MicrO2 to deliver blended product to the filler with lower DO levels of 0.1 ppm for carbonated sugary soft drinks and 0.3 ppm for diet soft drinks. This compares to DO levels resulting from the traditional process of 1.8 ppm.

“The fact that the MicrO2 system integrates deaeration makes it not only more efficient, but also more precise,” points out Admiral’s plant manager Clarence Foster. “Air is driven out of the product by CO2 and nitrogen flushing rather than by pumps and valves, and is done right at the point of use rather than remotely.”

In addition, to reduce the possibility of air being reintroduced at the filler, during installation of the new system the Admiral and Micro Blend teams added a purge system to the Bevcorp filler that reduces air from entering the product at the filler.

Reducing DO and N2 levels improves the stability of a beverage during packaging, whether in cans or bottles. There is less foaming at the filler, which enables higher filling speeds. Beverages can also be filled at higher product temperatures. Traditional methods attempt to compensate for higher volatility by lowering temperature. The MicrO2 process reduces volatility by eliminating non-CO2 gasses, making lowering the temperature unnecessary. This then reduces refrigeration costs and improves control over net weight that increases yields. A lower DO level also lowers the volatility of the product, minimizing opportunities for gases to be reintroduced at the filler and producing greater CO2 consistency.

MicrO2 is also ideal for use with cans that feature new, first-generation BPA-NI (BPA non-intent) liners that are more susceptible to DO than BPA-lined cans. This is particularly important when using cans from can-makers that guarantee “no leakers” only for filled cans with DO levels less than 1.2 ppm.

Perhaps most significant for the customer and retailers, lower DO levels contribute to maintaining product flavor longer through the beverage’s shelf life, and can also extend that shelf life itself.            

For Admiral, the payback period for the cost of installing each new system is about 1.8 years. In addition, because the new line configuration lowers power needs for the facility significantly, Rocky Mountain Power, the local power utility, provided incentives that reduced the cost of power even further. For example, the power required for refrigeration on the previous bottle and can lines totaled 500 HP; today both lines use 25% of that amount of power. On average, product temperatures at the lines’ filling heads went from 33°F to 46°F; some of the products being filled require no refrigeration at all.

This was one of the surprises,” says Willard. “I didn’t believe we could fill at those higher temperatures. But they proved me wrong.”

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