40 Clean In Place (CIP)
Learning Objectives
Discuss the Clean In Place (CIP) process, benefits, and drawbacks.
Definition
It is very common in the food processing industry, as well as in breweries, and pharmaceutical factories. CIP is mostly used for cleaning the internal surfaces of pipes, tanks, filters, vessels, and other equipment. CIP first started in the 1950’s, and it has been revolutionary in terms of effective and efficient sanitation. Although there are many different types of CIP machines which differ slightly, the main concept and steps are the same. A typical cycle includes these steps:
- Pre-rinse. This step is rinsing the area out with water to get rid of any soil
- Rinse with sodium hydroxide. This is the primary cleaning agent used.
- Intermediate rinse with water
- Acidic solution rinse. This step neutralized the sodium hydroxide and gets rid of mineral scales on the inside of the machinery
- Final water rinse
- Drying. Air is blown through the system to get rid of any moisture
This video explains the CIP steps in more detail
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Clean in place systems are very useful to the food-processing industry. Some advantages are:
- They are safe, efficient, and relatively quick
- Simple and automated
- Less physical labor intensive
- Highly repeatable
- Save employees from unnecessary chemical exposure.
There are also some disadvantages to clean-in-place systems. Those include:
- Expensive to install
- Environmental impacts
- Proper disposal of the soiled water and chemicals
- Older models may not be as environmentally friendly and use unnecessary
- amounts of water, energy and chemical
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References
Yusuf Chisti, Murray Moo-Young, Clean-in-place systems for industrial bioreactors: Design, validation and operation, Journal of Industrial Microbiology, Volume 13, Issue 4, 1 July 1994, Pages 201–207, https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01569748
https://cleanroomtechnology.com/news/article_page/Clean_in_place_systems_explained/144045