Regeneration & Sanitation

Regeneration by Ultrasonication

Objectives:
• Cleaning of Filter Elements by mechanical cleaning due to cavitation effects
• Reducing the Differential Pressure Drop
• Removing of settled Contaminations
• Prevention of permanent accumulating contaminations
• Disinfection

How to (General Procedure):

• Ultrasonication in cold water (5 minutes)
• Ultrasonication in hot water (15 minutes)
• Flushing with cold water
• Drying on air or compressed air

Special Procedures:
Instead of hot water for 15 minutes, other liquids are applicable too:
• Tenside solutions (for oily and sticky contaminations, max. 50°C)
• Citric Acid (for Mg or Ca salts, 5% - 10%, max. 50°C)
• HCl, HNO3 (for oxidizable and protonable contaminations, 5% - 10%, max. 50°C)
• NaOH (for deprotonable contaminations, 5% - 10%, max. 50°C)

 Flushing with cold water afterwards is essential

Caution: Flammable liquids are NOT to be used for ultrasonication

Regeneration by Water and Chemicals

Simple Regeneration (Forward Flow or Reversed Flow):

• Flushing the installation with cold water for 2 minutes immediately after product filtration ends. The
flow rate is to be 1.5 times higher than the flow rate during the product filtration.
• Flushing the installation with warm-hot water for 5 minutes. Please increase the temperature slowly
up to 70-80°C. The flow rate is to be 1.5 times higher than the flow rate during the product filtration.
• To remove hardly-soluble contaminations the hot water may be pumped in circles for 15 – 30 minutes.
• Also applicable for hardly-soluble contaminations to leave the hot water inside the installation
overnight. Discard this water the next morning and flush the installation again with hot water for 2
minutes.

 Check the differential pressure

Regeneration including Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) (Forward Flow or Reversed Flow) :

• Flushing the installation with cold water for 2 minutes immediately after product filtration ends.
• Flushing the installation with warm water (50°C) for 5 minutes.
• Pump in circles with 1% NaOH (50°C) for 5 – 10 minutes, discard the first liters coming out of the
housing
• Adding of 0.5% H2O2 solution and pumping in circles for 30 minutes
• Flushing with cold water until pH = 7 is reached
• Pump in circles for 5 minutes with 1% Citric acid
• Flushing with cold water until pH = 7 is reached

 Check the differential pressure

Advanced Sanitation and Regeneration (Forward Flow or Reversed Flow) :

• Flush the installation with cold water (2 – 2.5 times the normal flow) for 10 min to the sever.
• Flush the installation with hot water; the temperature needs to be increased in intervals.
The Ventilation valve opened, same flow rate and direction like under ordinary conditions to the
sever: o 30 - 40°C for 10 min
o 60 °C for 10 min
o Sanitation at 80 °C for 20 min
• If this doesn't work (the differential pressure doesn't decrease), go for a regeneration:
• NaOH 3% at 40°C for 5 min either to the sever of leave the NaOH overnight in the housing or (more
effective): NaOCl 1% over night in the housing.
• Neutralizing with Citric Acid 1% for 10 min to the sever
• Purging with cold water 10 min

 Check the differential pressure

General Remarks:
• If you dispose the liquids from the housings open the valves on the inlet and outlet and afterwards
the ventilation valve on top (Don't flush the element)
• The water typically used for sanitation needs to be particle free (5µm) and soft (low Mg and Ca
content)
• Please pay attention to the chemical resistance of the O-Rings used