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Gains from the dosing of additives in liquid form (Part 2)

Gains from the dosing of additives in liquid form (Part 2)

1) Greater automation and process control:

Dosing systems are usually composed of a tank, which can be installed outside the factory premises, saving internal space. This tank must have a specific containment dike or mutual to other liquids when together with other tanks.

In addition to the tank are the dosing systems themselves, which can be volumetric or by weight, with load cells. Usually, the dosing line is slightly pressurized, providing precision, safety and speed in dosing. 

Another important part is the dosing nozzles inside the mixers. These are positioned to provide the greatest possible contact with the mass of the macro ingredients and should be checked weekly. The capacity to receive future shipments without disruption and others procedures such as the line cleaning and inventory process should be considered when designing. Dosage verification and line pressure monitoring as indicators of an operationally stable system are fundamental.

2) Decontamination of the feed factory environment:

Usually, there is minimal retention on the walls of the packages, which added to the volume lost in the environment, generates waste of additives, and even an increase in particulates in the air, where there are operators who can inhale them. Packaging requires collection and forwarding to an accredited company for this activity, generating more costs and accounting and traceability controls;

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3) Gain in the dosing time of the ingredients in the mixer;

4) Gain of moisture in the feed and better adhesion of fine particles:

Modern mixers have gained speed, efficiency, and volume of ingredients for mixing. This evolution puts pressure on the two moments of the mixer, which is to receive the ingredients and the mixing itself. Liquid additives and oil have an ideal dosing sequence concomitantly with the macro ingredients, such as ground corn and soybean meal, where everything is already being mixed, what some colleagues call dry mixing and wet mixing when all have already dosed.

Mainly, it is preferable to count only one mixing time when all the ingredients have dosed. In the case of mixing followed by grinding, the mixing also must be counted after dosing all the ingredients. In joint grinding, there is the possibility of dosing liquids at three points: macro mixer, conveyor, and total mixing of the ingredients.

As for pelleting, there are currently advances in defining the moisture content of the mass to be pelleted, reducing the demand for steam humidification in the conditioner. Moisture and water activity values ​​must be constantly evaluated for good pellet quality and, in this case, additives in liquid form contribute to this dynamic, removing dry and adding moisture;

5) Cost optimization in the manufacturing process:

Cost reduction gains such as the disposal of packaging for a company accredited in the PNRS (National Solid Waste Plan – Brazil), reduction in the use of internal space in the factory, speed and agility in dosing, verification controls, lower loss by unmixing and gains in uniformity of the batches, added to a reduction in the cost of the manufacturing process of the additive itself, are certainly good motivators for the evolution in the dosage of liquids in a feed factory.

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