Juice Extraction Line

Overview

A juice extraction line takes whole fruit at one end and delivers raw juice at the other. It is built for tree fruit such as apples and pears, for citrus, and for soft fruit and berries, with throughput in the 3-10 t/h range. The line strings together discrete stages: washing, sorting, milling, mash treatment, pressing, juice collection, and clean-in-place. A Control Cabinet sequences every stage so one operator can run the whole line from a single panel.

Yield is the figure that matters most. A bare press recovers roughly 65% of the fruit weight as juice. Grinding the fruit finely in the Hammer Mill and then holding the mash with pectolytic enzyme in the Mash Treatment Tank breaks down the cell walls and the pectin gel, so a well-run line reaches 72-82% yield. The remaining solids leave the Continuous Belt Press as a dry pomace cake.

Reception and washing

Fruit is tipped into the Soak Tank, a 1500 liter stainless tank where a Side-Channel Blower bubbles air up through the water to scrub off field soil. Leaves and twigs float and skim off over the Skimming Weir. A Dewatering Elevator lifts the clean fruit out of the bath on a Perforated Elevator Belt that drains the wash water back to the tank, while two Spray Rinse Bar manifolds give a final rinse with fresh water. The elevator runs on a Elevator Drive Motor through a Gearbox Housing reducer, and the belt rides on Elevator Sprocket sets carried by Ball Bearing units.

Sorting and inspection

Washed fruit drops onto the Roller Inspection Table, where 24 driven Inspection Roller elements rotate each piece so its whole surface is visible. Pickers at the table pull obvious rejects by hand under the even light of the Inspection Light Hood. Downstream, the Optical Sorter uses two Line-Scan Camera units and matched LED Illumination Array lighting to spot rot, deep bruising, and foreign matter. The Sort Controller Board, built on an Microcontroller and Bare PCB, fires a bank of Air Ejector Valve air jets that blow flagged pieces into the Reject Chute. Removing rot before milling protects the flavor and the microbial quality of the juice.

Milling

The Hammer Mill is a hammer mill. Fruit enters through the Mill Feed Hopper and meets the Hammer Rotor, which carries 48 free-swinging Swing Hammer elements on six Hammer Carrier Disc carriers turning at up to 3000 rpm. The hammers shatter the fruit against the Mill Housing, and the mash passes out through the Mill Discharge Screen, a 6 mm perforated plate that fixes the particle size. Particle size is a balance: too coarse and the press cannot reach the juice, too fine and the mash blinds the press belt and slows drainage. A 30 kW Mill Drive Motor drives the rotor through a Drive Belt set.

Mash treatment

Fresh mash flows into the Mash Treatment Tank, a 2000 liter jacketed Mash Vessel held near 50 C by the Mash Jacket Heater loop. A Enzyme Dosing Skid skid meters liquid pectinase into the mash with a Enzyme Dosing Pump drawing from the Enzyme Stock Tank. The slow Mash Agitator keeps the mash uniform during a 30-90 minute hold while the enzyme degrades pectin. A Mash RTD Probe in a thermowell feeds the controller so the hold temperature stays in the active range for the enzyme.

Pressing and juice collection

Treated mash is moved by the Progressive-Cavity Mash Pump, a progressive-cavity pump whose PC Pump Rotor turns inside an elastomer PC Pump Stator and handles thick fibrous mash gently. The mash spreads onto the lower belt of the Continuous Belt Press. Two Filter Belt filter belts then carry the mash through a wedge zone and around a series of eight Pressing Roller elements of decreasing diameter, so the squeeze pressure rises gradually to 4-6 bar. Juice drains through the belts while the solids compact into a cake that the Cake Scraper lifts off at the discharge. Each Belt Tensioner holds belt tension with a Pressure Sensor in the loop, and the Belt Press Drive sets belt speed between 0.5 and 3 m/min.

Extracted juice falls into the Drip Trough and runs over the Vibrating Screen, whose 0.5 mm Screen Mesh takes out coarse pulp and seeds. The Sanitary Juice Pump then sends strained juice to the Juice Buffer Tank, watched by a Tank Level Sensor, ready for downstream clarification or pasteurization.

Cleaning and control

Between batches the CIP Cleaning System system circulates hot caustic and acid through every wetted path. Solution is held in the CIP Solution Tank vessels, warmed by a Heating Element, and driven by the CIP Circulation Pump at up to 30 m3/h through the CIP Valve Block and Spray Ball heads, with a Conductivity Sensor confirming the right concentration. The Control Cabinet ties the line together: a PLC Module reads the sensors and drives the outputs, four Variable Frequency Drive units set mill, belt, and pump speeds, and the HMI Panel shows recipes, throughput, and alarms to the operator.