In certain tank cleaning applications in the food and beverage industry a common problem can be clogged tank cleaning heads. The result is unwanted process downtime and increased maintenance costs. Clogging is usually caused by particles within the recycled cleaning fluid blocking the small holes in traditional spray balls and even more seriously, these can clog the bearings or gears on rotary devices. As a consequence, pre-determined cleaning patterns fail, cycles are incomplete resulting in missed areas. Often a secondary manual cleaning operation is then required to complete the cleaning process.
The Hydroclaw is a new design of tank cleaning head which has been introduced by The Spray Nozzle People offering the important benefit of being clog resistant. Traditional cleaning heads typically have multiple small orifices which form a 360º cleaning pattern. However, the new Hydroclaw impacts a jet of water on a claw like plate which shatters the fluid into a 360o pattern. As there is only a single orifice for the cleaning fluid to pass through the overall free passage is dramatically increased (between 3 to 5 times higher) allowing for high particle content liquid (for particles over 7.6mm in diameter) to be used as the cleaning media. The shape of the ‘claw’ is designed to ensure that the fluid shatters into a genuine 360º pattern effectively covering the whole tank. Initially developed for wine producers, the HydroClaw has applications for the wider brewing and distilling industry as well as for other non-food tank cleaning systems where clogging is a problem.
The HydroClaw is made from FDA compliant 316L stainless steel so is ideal for food grade and aseptic clean-in-place (CIP) applications. In addition to its innovative design it has no moving parts and is self-draining, self-flushing and is laser welded for optimum durability.
It provides with low pressure / high flow to enable quick cleaning of tank walls and helps to reduce water consumption compared to a static spray ball. The HydroClaw is designed to fit through a 76mm opening and is available with a variety of connection types such as 1“female NPT or G threads, 1½” or DN40 tube clip-on.
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