The Importance of Electropolishing
Protecting Your Food and Beverage Equipment and Industrial Process
Just imagine: it is scheduled maintenance time in an industrial food production facility. Maintenance and cleaning teams scramble into action, checking off the maintenance needs while cleaning the conveyors, drying equipment, processing vessels, tanks, and toasting ovens inside the facility. As the equipment is being cleaned, tiny pieces of residue remain between the tiny crevices of the equipment. To fully clean the equipment, it takes more and more time as residue builds and the equipment ages, increasing downtime expenses while risking contamination of the food production process. However, an electropolish finish can significantly improve equipment cleaning while reducing cleaning time.
High Polish Food Blending Tank
The residue is trapped in the surface of the industrial equipment because of the microscopic peaks and valleys inherent in any surface. These peaks and valleys are measured in microinches or 1/1,000,000 of an inch. The industrial equipment surface profile, measured by evaluating the average distance below and above the mean line of the microscopic peaks and valleys, establishes a standard for measuring the smoothness of a material surface. This average distance is referred to as Ra or roughness average. Standard mechanical polishing brings equipment surfaces to 20 – 30 Ra depending on the material type. However, adding electropolishing into the industrial process equipment manufacturing process reduces the surface profile to 3 – 5 Ra. By reducing the height of the peaks and the depth of the valleys through electropolishing, the food production facility realizes several immediate and long-term benefits including:
- Improved anti-cling characteristics
- Improved sanitary characteristics
- Improved resistance to corrosion characteristics
- Improved equipment appearance with a “near-mirror” finish
- Reduced residue build-up
All of these value-added benefits provide a significant return on investment over the lifetime of the vessel while reducing cleaning time. For more information about the type of custom food and beverage equipment we offer, visit the Food and Beverage Industry page or Contact Us today.