Conductivity sensors help cut CIP costs

20 January 2020

The new LDL100 and LDL200 conductivity sensors from ifm electronic are said to make it easy to implement efficient and cost-effective clean-in-place (CIP) systems that are accurately controlled on the basis of media measurements, rather than simply relying on timed processes.

Potential benefits of this are said to include reduced CIP time, which enhances plant availability; reduced usage of water and cleaning agents; improved process performance and easier validation of product quality.

Typical applications for the new sensors include measuring the concentration of wash fluids in rinse water, checking for rinse water contamination and the detection of product residues in the return pipe during CIP operations. These measurements validate the cleaning process and provide the data needed to accurately control its duration and also help eliminate the risk of products becoming contaminated by cleaning agents.

LDL100 conductivity sensors have a standard 4-20 mA analogue output with a conductivity measuring range of 100 to 15,000 µS/cm, while the LDL200 models use IO-Link technology to deliver accurate results even with long cable runs and in electrically noisy environments.