Spiragrip: efficient and gentle cleaning of plastic bottles

The Spiragrip represents a cleaning concept that is completely different from that of the classical bottle washers. Its technology has been developed for plastic bottles. It is based on a spiral-shaped bottle route through different baths with cleaning medium or water. The bottles are completely immersed. This allows for intensive cleaning steps in the post-treatment zones as well. A characteristic feature of the Spiragrip is container-friendly washing, coupled with minimised consumption of energy, water and chemicals.  After the bottles enter in a straight line without passing an infeed table, bottle carriers grasp the bottles´ neck rings and guide them gently through the machine. Besides the bottle route the Spiragrip provides a flow-optimised label removal feature that is effective throughout the washing process because there is no conventional bottle pocket.
The Coca-Cola licensee Nord-Ostsee-Getränkeproduktion Eltra in Mölln, Germany, relies on the Spiragrip: "The Spiragrip’s advantages lie in having the bottles guided by their neck rings. The crucial thing about bottle washing is that the rinsing liquid has to wet the inside wall. You can be sure of this with the Spiragrip, while with a conventional washer, the smaller bottles would tumble about in the bottle pocket. The Spiragrip has changed all this. That’s enormously important for PET”, comments Hans-Jürgen Kruck, Production Manager in Mölln. "Label detachment functions flawlessly with this machine. In terms of microbiology, too, we don’t have any problems at all, the bottles get cleaned exactly where we want them to."