Sugar Intake

Company Name: Steve Musk Engineering Ltd.

Location: Derbyshire, UK

Eclipse Product Installed: Pneumag Magnetic Separator

Industry: Confectionary

Process Type: Sugar Intake

Application Background:

Derbyshire-based Steve Musk Engineering Ltd. is an established provider of process systems to the brewing, confectionery, chemical, food, renewable energies, and water treatment industries.

Working with one of the UK’s leading confectionery companies that produce popular, high-quality chocolates available on the high street, it was important to offer complete safety to the processing stage of production to ensure the high standards of quality and safety are maintained for the brand.

The Problem:

Moving bulk volumes of sugar, the confectionary giant prioritises protection against potential hazards that can be present within the production process, particularly those that are found within its raw ingredients.

Foreign body prevention and detection is an important element of food safety and compliance. As with most bulk powders and grains, metal contamination is a common finding within sugar and poses one of the most problematic factors in chocolate manufacturing due to the risk of foreign bodies entering the production line.

Many contamination risks can be located throughout the process, however, it’s vitally important to make sure that raw ingredients are sufficiently protected. Metal contamination can make its way into raw ingredients in a variety of ways, from farming tools to transportation packaging. Machinery components, utensils and handling equipment can also all pose a risk.

Once a foreign body enters the production line, it can cause significant and costly damage to plant machinery, as well as presenting the potential risk of end-product contamination that can lead to product recalls and damage to brand reputation.

Due to the high quality and safety standards involved within food production, it is absolutely critical to use metal detection and magnetic separation throughout production.

Looking to the eliminate the risk of contamination of its stored sugar, Steve Musk Engineering’s client sought to bolster its safety processes, enhancing its foreign body removal processes to reduce total metal intake into the production process plant, minimising damage of the expensive equipment.

The Solution

Steve Musk Engineering Ltd. ensured its client had the utmost protection by installing Eclipse Magnetics’ Pneumag technology to its 30-ton bulk sugar silo in-take and line side, placing a 4-inch Pneumag to the bulk tank intake and further two 3-inch Pneumags on the silo-to-line production twin-stream system.

The Pneumag unit removes ferrous and paramagnetic contamination effectively from pneumatic process lines and contains a double-row, high-intensity magnetic cartridge, secured into its housing by quick-release toggle clamps to make sure even pressure is generated around the silicon-based metal-detectable seal.

The sugar is blown through or over the Rare Earth Neodymium Iron Boron (NdFeb) bars, allowing the high-intensity magnets to remove fine-particle metal contamination just microns in size.

Since installing the Pneumags, the company have reported that their target of significantly reducing metal particles entering the production line has been achieved following installation of the Eclipse Magnetic separators, with the technology assisting protection of both the sugar and the plant machinery further down the process line.

Comment:

Steve Musk of Steve Musk Engineering said: “With its high-strength magnets and overall high quality, the Pneumag is the top choice for applications within all sectors of the food industry that deal with powdered products such as sugar, flour and cocoa. It’s easy to clean and the service and technical knowledge from Eclipse Magnetics are second-to-none. We initially chose to work with their products upon a recommendation and we are certainly pleased to have done so. The excellent results of the Pneumag speak for themselves.”