Soft Drinks

For a soft drinks manufacturer filtration of their water supply is key to their manufacturing operation. Water is used throughout the manufacturing process. Product water and dilution water, but also support of the production process cleaning water, can or bottle washing and boiler feed applications. Water is a key ingredient and controlling the quality of incoming water to production is key to consistent manufacture of beverage products.

Potential water sources are mains, borehole, rivers, and springs, the two being the primary water sources. In mains supply the key concerns are the removal of chlorine, particulate, and spoilage organisms. With borehole sources then turbidity reduction, removal of particulates and spoilage organisms are the main concerns. Bag, carbon, depth, and pleated depth filters play key roles in removing contaminants.

Alternatively, companies decide to process their incoming water supply using of either reverse osmosis (RO) or deionization (DI) to product purified water. This ensures the water’s quality, reducing taste variation significantly ensuring final product consistency when used as either product water or for product dilution. Depth or pleated depth filtration as either prefiltration or guard filters to protect water treatment processes and the purified water quality.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) is an important gas as it is added to soft drinks to provide carbonation, the recognisable bubbles in the beverage when seen in a glass. During manufacture, storage or transportation CO2 can be contaminated with particulate and bacteria that can impact final beverage quality. These are simply removed using membrane gas filters at point of use, ensuring problems are negated.