1 Fruit grading technology and equipment
The traditional fruit grading form includes two major categories: volume grading and quality grading. Since grading purposes are mainly to unify product appearance specifications for packaging and upgrading of sales grades, volume grading is the most widely used. Volume grading equipment includes a drum grading machine, a three-roller grading machine, and a belt grading machine. The principle is similar, and both are screened using a number of sizes of hole frames or gaps. Quality grading equipment is developed from the early mechanical weighing and grading form to the current advanced high-speed dynamic electronic weighing grading form.
The FMC company's fruit grading and waxing equipment is mainly based on the quality classification of citrus models. It can complete the cleaning, sorting, waxing, grading, and packaging processes through the entire line; the fruit grading and packaging equipment of France's MAF France Not only can the fruits and vegetables be graded and packaged, but also electronic and optical principles can be used to classify the flaws in fruit and vegetable skins. All computers are monitored and the degree of automation is quite high.
Now, a more advanced and ideal grading and sub-quality technology has been applied in the above-mentioned foreign companies - using new types of fruit grading and quality separation equipment such as light curtain measurement technology or electronic scanning resolution technology. The light curtain is used to detect the fruit in operation, and its external dimensions are collected. After calculation by the central processor, an instruction is issued after comparing with the set hierarchical size, and the sorting mechanism is driven to move the fruit to an appropriate rank. The computer vision processing system, such as electronic scanning and resolution, can identify fruits and vegetables with different colors and shapes, and classify the flaws of the skins of fruits and vegetables to realize online classification and quality separation. This is an intelligent model that combines optical, mechanical, electrical, and programming operations. This classification and quality separation technology is a qualitative leap compared to the traditional aperture and quality classification methods, because it realizes non-contact graded and divided quality, accurate and high speed.
In the late 1980s, China imported citrus preserving and grading production lines from the United States and Japan, mainly using quality and aperture grading. Later, as a result of digestion and absorption by domestic scientific and technological personnel, domestically-adopted drum-type citrus and other fresh-keeping graded production lines began to become popular. However, there are currently no mature products for the use of new types of fruit grading and quality separation equipment such as light curtain measurement technology or electronic scanning resolution technology.
2 Techniques and equipment for stripping, de-nucleation and high-potency juice making
The juicer is an important device in the fruit processing line, which can maximize the juice yield and obtain the highest quality juice. Moreover, for different fruits and vegetables, the technology and equipment used are different. For example, for citrus processing, since the cell layer, sponge layer, choroidal tissue, and seeds contain some substances that make the juice bitter, these substances should be avoided from entering the juice during the juicing. Therefore, to produce high-quality orange juice, crushing and pressing can not be used, and only fruit juice can be used.
CITROSTAR Citrus Juicer is a special equipment for BERTUZZI's citrus fruit processing production line. It adopts the principle of fully automatic cup-type pressing. Instant separation of pericarp, fruit and juice, no crushing of core, high juice yield, original The juice basically does not contain bitter oil. This juice extraction technology is widely used in the citrus processing industry abroad. In addition, there is a type of split citrus juicer, the same as the single fruit juice, but first the fruit must be cut in half, and then the two half fruits are squeezed by the juicer juice, the bitterness of the original juice The amount of material is more than the former method.
Compared with domestic juice extraction equipment, it is mainly based on spiral juicers and belt juicers. With the expansion of fruit and vegetable processing varieties, more efforts should be made to develop a variety of special juice extraction equipment to deal with different fruit and vegetable materials processing, and to play a role of high quality and durability.
In recent years, with the expansion of fruit planting area, the output has been rising year after year, and the prices have continued to fall. Some local fruits such as litchi and longan also lost their price advantage to the lowest level in history, and it is imperative to develop their deep processing. Foreign companies have seized this opportunity to sell processing technology and equipment to China. Recently, VAL has successfully developed efficient shelling and decontamination equipments for litchi processing, comprehensive cracking, beating and separation technologies, and launched a complete set of litchi pulp processing equipment, which can be automatically cleaned, disinfected, shelled and separated, and pulp pulp separated. , is now stepping up its promotion to southern China.
Peeling and de-nucleation equipment is the key equipment for deep processing of fruits and vegetables, and it is the guarantee for automatic production. At present, for citrus peeling, chestnut shelling, lychee longan husk removal, separation of plum meat, etc., the country still lacks mature and efficient equipment, which is a direction worthy of research and development.
3 Concentration technology and equipment
There are two types of traditional fruit and vegetable juice concentrating methods: plate type and tube type. The former has falling film type and rising film type, and the latter has falling film type and forced circulation type.
In order to ensure the quality of the product, the residence time of the juice in the evaporator should be shortened as much as possible. The long residence time of the product in the evaporator can cause the loss of vitamins and organic nutrients as well as the loss of flavor and the change of color. Therefore, the competitive advantages of the plate evaporator are: the residence time in seconds, the product does not agglomerate; the volume is small, saves the area; the mechanical structure is firm and does not need to be based; the price is relatively low, easy to maintain, Ability can be increased at any time.
BERTUZZI's concentrated equipment in the fruit and vegetable juice processing line is a low-temperature evaporator and uses advanced technology of membrane reverse osmosis plus thin film evaporators. Reverse osmosis can retain other substances by forcing water through the membrane. The benefits of using reverse osmosis to concentrate fruit and vegetable juices are: no heat damage, good color retention, and low processing costs. Reverse osmosis can concentrate fruit juice and pulp to a maximum of 20-25 Brix. The advantages of thin film evaporators are: short residence time of materials, high quality concentration effect; high heat transfer performance, high area concentration capability; continuous concentration, strong adaptability, easy maintenance, and short start-up time. It can be seen that the combination of membrane reverse osmosis and thin film evaporators can achieve a highly effective and ideal result.
In contrast, the domestic enterprises adopt the evaporation and concentration process as the main technology, and the domestic applications for supporting applications are mainly rotating film evaporators and centrifugal thin film evaporators. In the process of fruit and vegetable juice concentration, domestic equipment has the disadvantages of low performance, unstable product quality, and low degree of automation.
4 Oil extraction and aromatic recovery technology and equipment
Some fruit skin oils can be processed into spices and their additives, which have a high utilization value and are worthy of attention in fruit and vegetable processing. For citrus processing, for example, BERTUZZI is equipped with a peeling grinding machine that can continuously and efficiently wipe away the epidermis oil cell layer, on the one hand to avoid skin oils entering the juice, thus improving the quality of the juice; on the other hand, it will Separation and purification of oil.
In the processing of fruit and vegetable juices, the recovery of aromatic liquids is an important part. BERTUZZI's equipment is equipped with an efficient and advanced aromatic recovery unit in one-effect flash evaporator evaporators and degassers.
Research on aromatic liquid recovery technology equipment has long been neglected in the domestic fruit and vegetable juice processing industry, and there is basically no supporting application on the fruit and vegetable juice production line. Even if equipment was installed online, the effect was so poor that most companies did not use it.
5 Aseptic Packaging Technology and Equipment
Aseptic packaging is a technical revolution in the food industry, creating a new situation in food processing. Aseptic packaging in the food industry (ASEP-TIC PACKGING, abbreviated as AP) requires the product to be sterilized and filled and sealed in a sterilized container in a sterile environment. Since the packaged product is completely free of bacteria and air, it can be stored at room temperature for long periods of time without refrigerating.
In the field of aseptic packaging, aseptic soft packaging systems designed and developed by Tetra Pak Co., Ltd. are the oldest and most authoritative, and their production lines are spread all over the world, resulting in the "Tetra Pak" becoming "aseptic packaging". synonym. In addition, International Paper Corporation (INTERNA-TIONAL PAPER) also introduced similar packaging processing systems. Its packaging form is similar to that of the Tetra Pak.
Regardless of Tetra Pak or International Paper, its packaging lines are focused on consumer-oriented carton packs, and they have a monopoly in this area. Other foreign companies focus their aseptic packaging research on aseptic bag packaging (ie bag-in-bag packaging). BERTUZZI's advanced sterilizing system and aseptic filling equipment adopts flow meter type quantitative filling, which can set the filling volume according to the bag type, and can reach up to 1000L. Sterilization, filling, and sealing are completed at one time. Its packaged products are generally intermediate products and are supplied to beverage companies for blending and processing.
In addition, ERCA of France introduced a plastic molding and aseptic packaging production line. The packaging material uses a multi-layer coextrusion aseptic plastic sheet with a protective shovel layer. The sterile protective layer is peeled off and automatically formed in a neutral aseptic environment. Labeling, filling, capping, and output of finished products. Due to the use of neutral sterilization and aseptic packaging technology, as well as a highly light-proof multi-layer co-extruded sterile plastic sheet as packaging material, and aluminum-plastic composite materials printed as labels and cover materials, the product has high sealing performance. , long shelf life.
In this regard, China started late, and only individual companies took the form of reference imitation to produce boxed aseptic packaging equipment. However, compared with Tetra Pak's products, there is still a considerable distance, and it can only be used for small and medium-sized enterprises. Sales. As for the small bagged liquid aseptic packaging machine, in recent years, domestic enterprises have carried out research and achieved some results. The large bagged liquid aseptic packaging machine is also in its infancy.
To sum up, in the key technology and equipment for fruit and vegetable processing, we still have a big gap compared with the world's advanced level. If we do not solve these problems, we will seriously restrict the development of the fruit and vegetable processing industry. With the increasing demand for fruit and vegetable juice beverages at home and abroad, this brings a rare opportunity for fruit and vegetable juice production. Grasping this opportunity, the company has conducted in-depth research on the key technology and equipment for fruit and vegetable processing, and has broad prospects for popularization and application. Very huge.