Extend the shelf life of food and beverages

Gea is expand­ing its D‑tec valve line with the new D‑tec P/DV con­trol valve for ultr­a­clean appli­ca­tions in the food, bev­er­age and dairy indus­tries. This allows reli­able con­trol of process para­me­ters such as vol­ume flow, pres­sure, tem­per­a­ture and fill­ing lev­el of a ves­sel. Due to the her­met­i­cal­ly seal­ing D‑tec stem diaphragm, the valve achieves a high­er stan­dard of hygiene. For exam­ple, it helps ensure prod­uct safe­ty in beer mix­es and soft drinks, fruit juices, milk-based and lac­tic acid-fer­ment­ed prod­ucts or even sauces, and con­tributes to a longer min­i­mum prod­uct shelf life as is often demand­ed by the market.

Longer shelf life, less preservatives

The P/DV type D‑tec con­trol valve uses her­met­i­cal­ly sealed D‑tec stem diaphragms. These pro­vide improved con­t­a­m­i­na­tion pro­tec­tion against the atmos­phere and thus ensure micro­bial sta­bil­i­ty of the prod­uct through­out the entire process. While the D‑tec valve line can be used in asep­tic process­es, Gea sees the appli­ca­tion of the new con­trol valve pri­mar­i­ly for ultr­a­clean appli­ca­tions. The con­trol valves are select­ed for prod­ucts that require an extend­ed shelf life, with or with­out cool­ing, depend­ing on the pH val­ue, cold chain and stor­age char­ac­ter­is­tics. These prod­ucts include iced tea, fruit juice, fruit yoghurt and ESL milk.

Valve diaphragm connection increases pathogen barrier and service life

“The crit­i­cal point between valve stem and stem diaphragm has an increased risk of pathogen intro­duc­tion: Here, met­al and plas­tic – two mate­ri­als that react dif­fer­ent­ly to tem­per­a­ture and pres­sure – come into con­tact. For this rea­son, we have designed a sup­port­ing ring that guides and coun­ter­acts the stem diaphragm dur­ing stroke move­ment. This approach is more effec­tive than oth­er options avail­able on the mar­ket”, says Pas­cal Bär, prod­uct man­ag­er for asep­tic valves at GEA, explain­ing how the valve con­tributes to increased process and prod­uct safety.

Modular construction enables process adaptation

The P/DV D‑tec con­trol valve is part of the Varivent mod­u­lar prin­ci­ple, which is char­ac­ter­ized by its vari­abil­i­ty for dif­fer­ent require­ments. This enables the valve to be con­fig­ured accord­ing to the pre­vail­ing process con­di­tions. It has an equal-per­cent­age con­trol cone char­ac­ter­is­tic and is avail­able in the valve sizes DN40 up to DN100 and OD1.5” up to OD4”. Dif­fer­ent KVS val­ues are avail­able for each valve size and dif­fer­ent hous­ing com­bi­na­tions can be imple­ment­ed. The valve seat can be exe­cut­ed with a metal­lic stop as well as soft (V‑Ring) and hard seal­ing – the lat­ter with the new Tefasep gold mate­r­i­al, which the com­pa­ny recent­ly intro­duced. In addi­tion, D‑tec con­trol valves are equipped by default with the proven T.VIS P‑15 posi­tion controller.