The Customer
Purity Soft Drinks is a well-established UK beverage manufacturer producing a wide range of juice drinks in PET bottles across multiple formats. With a busy production line and multiple product variations, keeping operations running smoothly and ensuring a consistent product finish is essential.
The Background
The initial conversation began when Purity Soft Drinks met our team at PPMA Show 2024, the UK’s leading exhibition for processing and packaging machinery.
During discussions on the stand, their engineering team explained they were exploring ways to improve the drying stage on their bottling line.
Their existing system was based an old conventional setup. While functional, it had several drawbacks that are common with older drying installations:
- Inefficient drying capabilities, resulting in residual moisture remaining on the containers.
- Regular maintenance requirements due to belt wear and replacement
- High operational noise levels on the production floor
- Continuous operation regardless of line throughput, leading to unnecessary energy consumption
These limitations prompted Purity to start looking for a more modern, efficient alternative.
The Challenge
The most pressing issue for Purity was inconsistent bottle drying on the production line. Residual moisture remaining on bottles after filling was beginning to impact two key areas of the operation.
Firstly, moisture was interfering with the hot melt glue labelling process. Even small amounts of water on the bottle surface can compromise adhesive performance, leading to occasional label placement issues and reducing the overall reliability and appearance of the finished product.
Secondly, droplets left on the bottle caps were triggering false rejects at the inspection stage. Inspection systems are designed to detect imperfections, but water droplets can easily be interpreted as faults, resulting in perfectly good bottles being rejected unnecessarily and reducing the lines overall efficiency.
The system needed to operate in line with Purity’s production output, which required the drying of up to 21,000 bottles per hour. In addition, the line processes a variety of bottle formats, meaning the drying solution had to allow straightforward adjustment to accommodate different PET container sizes, including:
- 300 ml
- 330 ml
- 400 ml
- 500 ml
- 1 litre
As a result, the dryer needed to maintain effective moisture removal at these production rates while also allowing quick and simple format changes without disrupting the flow of production.
In practical terms, Purity required a drying solution that could provide consistent and reliable drying performance, while also offering the flexibility needed to support a production line running multiple bottle formats.
The Solution
Following a site visit to Purity and a detailed review of the line layout and production requirements, we recommended the DryGuide Essential as the most suitable solution, as it met the required throughput while also providing the flexibility needed to handle multiple bottle formats.
The DryGuide Essential is an energy-efficient dynamic drying system designed for beverage production lines. It removes residual water from containers such as bottles and cans after processes that leave the container wet, helping manufacturers maintain hygiene standards, prevent contamination and ensure containers are fully dry before downstream operations such as labelling and inspection.
One of the first improvements for Purity came from replacing the belt-driven blower system with high-efficiency direct drive centrifugal blowers. Removing belts from the system eliminates a common maintenance point, reducing the need for routine replacements and helping keep the line running without unnecessary downtime. The blower design also runs significantly quieter, improving the working environment on the production floor.
To resolve the moisture issues affecting both labelling and inspection, the DryGuide technology allows the air knives to be positioned extremely close to the container surface. This close proximity, combined with a Direct Drive blower, produces a focused, high-velocity airflow that effectively removes moisture from critical areas of the bottle.
This ensures that water is cleared from the shoulder, body and cap, the areas that were previously causing problems on the line. As a result, bottles now reach the labelling station dry, allowing the labels to bond consistently, while the removal of droplets from the caps has significantly reduced false rejects at the inspection stage.
The adjustable air knife system also allows the machine to be quickly set up for different bottle formats. With Purity regularly running a variety of bottle formats, operators can easily reposition the airflow to suit each format without lengthy adjustments.
Finally, the system improves energy efficiency through its automatic standby function. When there is no product passing through the machine, the blowers switch to idle mode automatically, preventing unnecessary energy use and reducing operating costs. helping maintain a more efficient production line.
Since installation, the dryer has delivered consistent, reliable drying, helping to stabilise the labelling process and reduce unnecessary rejects at inspection.
Customer Feedback
“The machine was easy to install and integrated smoothly into our existing line. We saw results immediately, bottles are consistently dry before labelling and we’ve reduced unnecessary rejects at inspection. The system is also quieter and requires far less maintenance than our previous setup. Secomak made the whole process straightforward.’’ said Purity Soft Drinks Chief Engineer Rich Chadderton.
Technical Specification
