What you need to know for conveying viscous fluids

Do you work with viscous products like oils, syrups, waxes, chocolates or similar viscous fluids?

Then you know that processing viscous liquids comes with a unique set of challenges:

1. Fluidity maintenance: As the temperature changes, the flow properties variate and you need to control it more carefully.

2. Cleanability: the stickiness makes it much more difficult to clean, you need to take a special care to cleanability to guarantee the hygiene in your production facilities.

3. Waste disposal costs: the high viscosity increase considerably the waste and the cost, lowering down the efficiency of the manufacturing processes.

4. Requirement of special equipment adapted for the viscous flow.

For example, if we compare a customer that conveys water and a customer that conveys a viscous product like chocolate, we can see that the viscous liquid presents a higher resistance to flow. If we don’t provide a special solution to convey and manage the flow of the viscous product, the temperature is not maintained and decreases considerably along the way.

As you can see, viscosity plays an important challenge to all production stages, especially in the food sector.

1. Choose the right hose to maintain the temperature

Venair has a special solution to convey viscous products, an electrically heated hose. A highly flexible FDA and USP VI silicone electrical heated hose that provides a regular temperature along its length. It’s usually used for applications which it’s critical to ensure a constant temperature to help maintain and optimum fluidity of the conveyed product.

The hose can resist the following temperatures scales: -55°C/+180°C (-67ºF/ 356ºF)

The hose presents a fully integrated electrical system that ensures a full safety system and a highly smooth finishing, making it the perfect solution for the most hygienization of the process.

Direct heating managed properly is the best solution that you can provide, by a low-watt-density electric heating you can manage fluid flow, avoid overheating and mitigate unintended degradation.

You can download the technical details for further information.

However, when the control of the temperature is not that critical for the manufacturing process, an alternative solution could be to use TELCRA, an insulating hose that offers thermal insulation and helps to reduce the decrease of the temperature alongside the hose.

The hose can resist the following temperature scales: -55°C / +180°C (-67°F/356°F).

You can download the technical details for further information or research more information in our latest article.

2. Choose the right connections to assure fluid flow

Using a crimped hose that avoid contamination is critical. In Venair all our hoses are crimped with a SZR system, a system that eliminates the contaminations that may appear between the joint of the hose and the fittings by placing two fittings at the end at the same level of the hose.

The SZR system prevents the utmost differences in diameter between the metal fitting and the hose, ensuring continuous product flow without inner turbulence. This leads to time saving by allowing on-site cleaning (CIP) to be performed without disassembly. The SZR assembly system ensures a higher level of non-retention in the flexible hoses, as well as greater safety of use. Discover more information about our crimping solutions in the following article.

3. Use custom designs to optimize your production process

Our experts can offer you custom constructions that adapt to your machinery and processing designs to achieve an optimization of the processes.

We can build the hoses with different materials adapted to your fluid compatibility and pressure needs, our heated hose is standardly built with platinum USP VI silicone, however, it can be manufactured with the following materials:

Insulating and anti-condensation cover to protect the operators from burning.

Inner layers of fluorocarbon or fluoropolymer materials for higher chemical compatibility with chemicals like acids and oils.

We can manufacture heated hose constructions under demand; elbows and special shapes that adapt to any kind of machinery used for food or pharmaceutical processing: mixers, dryers, filling machines, coating...

We usually help in a broad range of processes, for food applications we present broad expertise in processing chocolates, honey, caramels, syrups, and creams. In Pharmaceutical and cosmetics, we work with paraffines, waxes and glycerin’s. However, we can help you assist in any kind of application you need to control viscosity!

For further information and assistance, you can call any of our advisors that we present around the globe.

4. Guarantee a safe installation and maintenance

To ensure a safe installation and operability of the hose, you should consider:

Install it to be accessible at any time and not hindered in its natural position and motion.

Make sure that the hose is protected from damage caused by mechanical, thermal, or chemical influences from outside.

Additionally, to assure correct maintenance, you should periodically inspect internally and externally hoses. In case of visible internal or external damages, you shouldn’t put it into operation.

For more information regarding safety, installation check our guidelines and recommendations.

5. Use traceable QR codes for effective maintenance and replacement

The heated hose can be marked with a QR code that can keep all the essential data such as date of manufacture, lot number, certificate, maximum pressure …. It makes it easier to comply with all regulations and perform effective maintenance and replacement work.