Temperature transmitter aids speedy sterilisation

An Emerson Process Management - Rosemount Measurement product story

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 22, 2003

The Rosemount 848T eight-input temperature transmitter is enabling steam in place cycle time reductions of typically 20% on fully monitored plant installations.

The Rosemount 848T eight-input temperature transmitter from Emerson Process Management is enabling steam in place (SIP) cycle time reductions of typically 20%, on fully monitored plant installations.

This improvement in operating efficiency arises from Emerson PlantWeb digital plant architecture, and the Foundation fieldbus capability of the 848T technology.

This same technology reduces the initial capital cost of such SIP monitoring installations by 20-30%.

The SIP processes used for cleaning and sterilisation in the food, pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries use steam to heat process vessels and piping to a high "kill" temperature, and maintain this temperature for a defined time, typically 30min or more, to eliminate bacteria.

Where no automated temperature instrumentation is used, the soaking phase of the SIP process is extended and held, while manual checks are completed, or to establish an excess safety margin and assume that all pipeline sections are properly treated.

When monitoring all relevant parts of the plant using Rosemount temperature technology, and tracking the time at the required temperature, SIP cycle times can be reduced, and the plant efficiency increased.

Extensive monitoring installations, involving several hundred sensors, are reduced in initial installation and wiring costs by using Rosemount 848T multisensor monitoring throughout the plant.

Each unit monitors eight separate temperature sensors, either RTD or thermocouple, and with up to sixteen 848T units on just one Foundation fieldbus wiring loop segment, a single cable back to the control room can be used to collect data on 128 sensors.

The 848T therefore saves on the initial cost of plant wiring and control room I/O interfacing, and each Rosemount 848T unit replaces the cost of eight separate temperature transmitters.

This approach produces typical cost savings of 30% compared to a conventional installation.

Further possibilities arise for throughput improvement once the monitoring installation is in place and operational by using continuous automated temperature monitoring to calculate the accumulated lethality factor for each temperature measurement point.

The lethality factor accounts for sterilisation time at lower temperatures and therefore, reduces the required heating time.

This returns the unit to production in a shorter time increasing process throughput while reducing utility cost.

The Rosemount 848T is an ideal temperature measurement solution for the high-density temperature monitoring SIP application.

It provides significant accuracy improvement over the manual verification process, and it enables continuous temperature monitoring at each SIP measurement point.

This improves the ability to consistently sterilise the process, thereby reducing the risk of contamination.