Romaqua’s plant in Borsec Romania, one of Europe’s biggest and most modern mineral water bottling facilities with a capacity of 2 million litres per day, is now equipped with a ColiMinder®.
The ColiMinder® is installed to safeguard Romaqua’s product quality, providing permanent and fully automated monitoring of microbiological quality for both naturally carbonated and still mineral water.
Why did Romaqua decide to install a Coliminder®?
There are three dimensions of water quality that need to be managed in food and beverage processing; Physical, Chemical and Microbiological.
Physical and chemical water quality is generally monitored and managed on-line in close to real-time.
Microbiological water quality, arguably the most important risk from a public health perspective, is generally managed using traditional grab sampling and laboratory methods, returning a result on a single sample after 1-3 days. This approach has little to no value in managing microbiological risk. So, many bottled water manufacturers manage the risk by oversizing processes and/or overdosing disinfectants.
Recent developments in rapid on-line microbiological technology have changed the rules and made it possible to manage microbiological water quality in the same way that physical and chemical water quality can be managed.
Vienna Water Monitoring Systems (VWMS) leads the field in rapid on-line microbiological monitoring with its Coliminder technology and has very successfully demonstrated its value in managing microbiological risk in the bottled water industry through the ground-breaking application at Romaqua’s bottling plant.
Bottled water/soft drink production processes contain several treatment steps. The Coliminder® can help manage microbiological water quality at several process locations, including;
- Monitoring E. coli in the incoming raw water, to protect against potential fecal contamination.
- Monitoring Total Bacterial Activity after each filtration step. Every filter is a potential source of microbiological contamination.
- Monitoring Total Bacterial Activity of the final rinsing water of the bottle washing machine.
- In case of any elevated measurement result the ColiMinder® will send an alert and, with an optional add-on modulecan fill a sample into a sterile bottle for in-depth evaluation in the laboratory.
Key features of the Coliminder® include;
- Fully automated sampling, measurement, cleaning, calibration,
- Two sample lines standard, with an add-on option to increase the number of sample lines to 10,
- Batch process – 15 minutes from sampling to result- followed by 10 minutes cleaning,
- Up to 50 measurements per day under standard operating conditions, with up to 75 measurements per day possible for limited periods,
- No contaminated waste,
- Fully controllable through an internet connection,
- Remote, online data visualisation and automatic notification of alerts (email, SMS),
- User interface generates a timeline in addition to displaying single measurement history,
- Up to 1,000 measurements without manual intervention,
- Temperature-controlled IP65 housing,
- Remote communication via LAN/Wi-Fi/ 3G-4G,
In Australia, Optimos Solutions represents VWMS and has recently installed two Coliminders in drinking water applications, one is monitoring E. coli in raw water and one is monitoring Total Bacterial Activity in a drinking water network.
The Coliminder® has proven to be simple to install and manage, and extremely reliable. The systems demonstrate a very high level of sensitivity to change in water quality. Coupled with expert support offered by VWMS and Optimos, the Coliminder® could be a very valuable addition to your suite of water quality management tools.
Contact us if you would you like to understand more about the Coliminder® and how it can potentially help in your bottling operations?
