Food Processing

gasketing Garlock products Food Processing Pharmaceutical Garlock gasket
Addressing sealing challenges in rotating equipment for the food and pharmaceutical industries
September 20, 2023

Material certifications, seal geometry and even seal color must also be factored in to allow for maximized seal life, minimized risk and reduced total cost of ownership for both the seal and the rotating equipment.
The most challenging operational environments for sealing mixers, agitators and pumps are often found in the food and pharmaceutical industries. When designing, selecting, or implementing a dynamic seal into operation in the food and pharma space, it is crucial to consider all the physical challenges the seal may face to ensure sealing success. Further, material certifications, seal geometry, and even seal color must also be factored in to allow for maximized seal life, minimized risk and reduced total cost of ownership for both the seal and the rotating equipment.
In this article, we will highlight some of the common environments found within these industries, discuss how the operating conditions affect seal design and selection, and finally, share some

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Freudenberg Sealing Food Processing
FST's Simmerring - Proven Seal Design, New Materials
May 26, 2023

Freudenberg Simmerring - Maximum Performance Under Extreme Pressure: B2PT
The Freudenberg Simmerring has been a successful product for about nearly 90 years. It seals rotating shafts reliably, and is used in millions of applications and machines in many industries. The Simmerring is flexible, highly loadable, and very dependable. Freudenberg Sealing Technologies has now further developed Simmerrings for use in the process industry – and they are made of food-grade materials.
At high rotational speeds and pressures,

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O-rings Elastomers Food Processing Garlock Fluoroelastomers
The Rise of Metal Detectable O-Rings
January 24, 2023

Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) and Sealing
Every year, approximately 1 in 6 people in the U.S. get sick (~48 million people), 100,000+ are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne illnesses or diseases, according to data from the CDC. Though this is largely a preventable problem, it still poses a significant public health burden.
The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), enacted by Congress in 2011, is "transforming the nation’s food safety system by shifting the focus from responding to foodborne illness to preventing it."
Although one might think the

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Freudenberg Sealing Elastomers Food Processing
Tackling Flavor Transfer with Seals Made from Globally-Certified Materials
April 18, 2019
The popularity of multi-flavor drink dispensers, those touch screen wonders that offer dozens of beverage and flavor options to consumers, has grown during the past decade. Manufacturers are installing these complex machines in venues and locations throughout the world.

Elastomers and flavor transfer

But what’s great for an individual customer – a cherry-ginger-lime cream soda, for example – can play havoc with the elastomer seals inside the machine. Add in hygienic cleaning requirements and proper food contact certifications and equipment manufacturers can find themselves spending months chasing challenges like flavor transfer, leaks and material compliance approvals.

Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies, a leading specialist in advanced sealing applications, has a portfolio of solutions to resolve these issues. The company, which runs the business operations for Freudenberg

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Food Processing bearing isolator Garlock
Garlock Case Study: Poultry Processing: KLOZURE® ISO-GARD®
February 26, 2019

Poultry Processing: KLOZURE® ISO-GARD®

ISO-GARD bearing isolators offer exceptional bearing protection for pumps, motors, and bearing supported industrial equipment under the harshest conditions.

ISO-GARD products are constructed using a filled PTFE material which provides excellent chemical resistance.

INDUSTRY

Food - Poultry Processing

CUSTOMER

A diversified food processing company, with facilities located
throughout the US.

BACKGROUND

The customer had persistent problems with sealing the bearings in their non-metallic feather picker housings. Using standard lip seals, and with a monthly maintenance program, they still encountered frequent failures. With 72 assemblies (each with two sealing locations) this had a detrimental effect on manufacturing efficiency, and placed a significant burden on the maintenance teams.

CHALLENGES FACED

Poultry feathers were getting under the lip seals and into the bearing housing, causing frequent and unexpected failures. Daily wash-downs also used a chemical cleaning solution that could also damage the bearings if not sealed correctly. Additionally, there was limited space available for any modification of sealing element.

Meat processing environments are highly regulated by the FDA, so any manufacturing changes must be carefully controlled. Therefore the customer required close support to ensure that any changes could be implemented with full confidence.

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rotary seals sealing technology Freudenberg Sealing PTFE Food Processing
The Perfect Wave; The Gerromatic Rotary Seal
January 02, 2019

Gear motors, pumps and stirring units keep process material in constant motion in the process industry’s production facilities. A large number of shaft seals are used at drive shafts to keep liquids securely within the equipment. But leaks may be more likely to occur if the pressure acting on the seals becomes too great. Freudenberg Sealing Technologies has developed a new rotary seal, the Gerromatic, which has a wave-shaped sealing lip. This increases the maximum amount of pressure that can be applied. The sinusoidal contact path also reduces friction and provides self-cleaning, which extends operating life.

In the process industry, including the food and beverage sector, shaft seals used in equipment mostly have a rotation-symmetrical seal lip, which abuts the rotating shaft with a groove-like contact pattern. During wet-running, this can cause the medium to be displaced at the contact surface. The seal then runs in a more or less dry condition, leading to increased friction and higher temperatures. The increased friction increases wear and reduces the efficiency of the equipment. The accompanying rise in temperature is not desirable, especially when the process media are temperature-sensitive. If the seal lip is also exposed to high temperatures at high rotational speeds – for example, due to a process material that applies pressure to the seal lip in a vessel with a stirring unit below it – the lip can fold down on the low-pressure side, which would result in immediate leakage and the seal’s failure.

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Freudenberg Sealing Food Processing
Resolving Food and Beverage Challenges
December 13, 2018
When it comes to sealing food and beverage systems against leaks, contamination and malfunctions, meeting a product specification does not guarantee that seals will function as needed, two Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies experts told a webinar audience in September. Freudenberg-NOK runs the business operations for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies in the Americas.

Freudenberg’s David Clark, Operations Manager, Central Laboratory and with Ryan Fleming, Analytical Laboratory Manager, provided insight about the nature of elastomers, market trends like custom flavor combinations, regulatory requirements and the importance of material compatibility and advanced analytical testing. All of these factors must come into play when choosing the right material to produce effective elastomer components for food and beverage machinery, they emphasized during their Beyond a Spec: Choosing the Right Sealing Materials for Food and Beverage Applications webinar.

“Today’s global industry means engineering for multiple markets and diverse regulatory compliance standards, which can be challenging and expensive, so it must be considered early,” said Clark. “Simply meeting a product specification does not ensure a seal will function."

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Food Processing gasket
FDA Standards Key to Proper Gasket Selection
September 13, 2018

Food and beverage producers rely on a wide array of equipment to ensure their products are safe and free of contamination. Sealing devices such as gaskets are key components in this equipment, yet do not receive the attention they warrant given the critical importance of their function.
PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) Molecule
PTFE-based and elastomeric seals have for decades been the products of choice for food and beverage applications. The two most commonly referenced Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards for sealing products are found in the Code of Federal Regulations under Title 21 (Food and Drugs), part 177 (Indirect Food Additives: Polymers). Section 177.1550 focuses on perfluorocarbons such as PTFE- based products, and Section 177.2600 deals with rubber articles intended for repeated use.
These two standards specify which ingredients used in the production of sealing products are acceptable for applications where contact with food products can occur, as well as how much of the approved ingredients can be released from the polymer/elastomer when extracted with specific media — i.e. water, hexane, etc. — under specified testing conditions.

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Parker Hannifin Seals Food Processing
New Sealing Material HiFluor® FB
October 19, 2017
Article re-posted with permission from Parker Hannifin Sealing & Shielding Team.
Original content can be found on Parker’s Blog.

New Sealing Material HiFluor® FB for Hygienically Sensitive Applications

Be it in the production of food, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics or medical devices coming into contact with the human body, excellent purity and media resistance combined with a wide range of robust properties is always required of the materials used for the components in the manufacturing processes. Specifically for these challenging applications, Parker has developed a new sealing compound with very good mechanical properties and excellent permanent elasticity: HiFluor^® FB V8991.

Fluoroelastomeric materials have proven their viability in chemical and food processing, cosmetics, pharmaceutical and life science applications involving non-polar solvents, aliphatic compounds, greases, oils and aromatic substances whenever the resistance of standard materials such as hydrogenated nitrile butadiene rubber (HNBR) and ethylene propylene rubber (EPDM) is no longer sufficient.

Innovative “Pure” Sealing Solution HiFluor® FB V8991

As a compound and seal manufacturer, Parker Prädifa, in the light of the growing demands made on sealing elements in the aforementioned markets, has developed a HiFluor^® FB compound with very good mechanical properties and excellent permanent elasticity.

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Parker Hannifin Seals Food Processing
Sealing Materials for Food Applications
September 26, 2017
Article re-posted with permission from Parker Hannifin Sealing & Shielding Team.
Original content can be found on Parker’s Blog.

A Guide to Selecting the Proper Sealing Material for Food Applications

The substances used in the food and in the chemical process industries are identical in many cases, whether they are of natural origin or synthetically produced. Irrespective of their type and occurrence – be it in process media, in raw materials for products or in finished products – the materials for seals and engineered components used in production equipment coming into contact with diverse chemical substances have to meet specific purity requirements and be resistant to chemicals under the given process conditions. Purity and stability are therefore basic prerequisites for materials in the chemical process industry and the food industry. The challenge lies in selecting the proper sealing material for an application.

Top Priorities: Consumer Health and Safety

Consumer health and safety are of paramount importance in food, beverage and pharmaceutical production processes. Therefore, the materials have to comply with specific legal requirements and standards, depending on their application. The harmlessness of the materials for the intended uses, such as applications involving contact with foodstuffs and drinking water, must have been certified by relevant approvals and conformities. Equally important to consumer safety is that the materials are free of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), phthalates, mineral oil based plasticizers and animal derived ingredients (ADI).

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