Enclosures protect vacuum pumps from cleaning agents

In order to ensure the highest standards of hygiene, food producers and processors are obliged to clean their machinery regularly via washdowns.

To guarantee that vacuum pumps are effectively protected from the used aggressive cleaning media, Leybold has developed a series of hygienic enclosures. The vacuum specialist offers users these stainless steel housings in seven different sizes, tailor made for each vacuum pump.

Risk of contamination eliminated

In the food industry, vacuum pumps are often placed directly next to the processing and packaging lines and thus not implemented in the equipment. On the one hand, this leads to a higher vacuum performance because, losses in pumping speed over longer pipelines are avoided. A direct positive consequence of this, are shorter process cycles and a better product quality. On the other hand, unprotected pumps are directly exposed to aggressive cleaning media during the rinsing processes. Over time, this leads to corroded vacuum pumps, shorter life cycles, higher costs and ultimately even to food contamination.

Effectively protected in stainless steel enclosures

In order to counteract these risks, Leybold has developed a new protection concept with the Hygienic Enclosures. Encased by these stainless steel enclosures, the vacuum pumps can be positioned near machines and systems without any problems.

“On the basis of the protected Leybold vacuum pumps we can create better and more robust solutions for the demanding food applications,” said product manager Niels Gorrebeeck. “Of course, this applies all the more to applications such as stuffers, tumblers and of course packaging machines, where the machines and systems are cleaned and disinfected particularly frequently and intensively.”

Tailor made and easy to install

Gorrebeeck said these stainless steel enclosures are made for each vacuum pump. As a result each enclosed pump can run constantly on every working pressure. The only limitation is the maximal ambient temperature for the enclosure. Although the normal working temperature in F&P environments is around 10°C, Leybold qualified most enclosures up to 25°C. All the enclosures are offered as a Do It Yourself kit and can be as well installed as commissioned by the user themselves without great effort.