For businesses in the food industry, magnetic separation is the secret ingredient for a safe and pure supply chain. It’s critical to the production process because it removes metal contaminants from food products. But how does it actually work? More importantly, what equipment is best for your unique applications?
Keep reading to find out.
How Do Food Processing Magnets Work?
Metal shards are known to enter the food supply chain at various points. This is a safety hazard because you don’t want people to ingest them, and they can also do damage to your production equipment. Magnetic separators are used to attract and remove ferrous contaminants from food products.
Magnetic separators are used in several different stages of the food production process, and they come in a variety of designs and sizes. They’re there to remove contaminants from raw materials before processing and metal from finished products before packaging and bulk loading.
What Types of Magnetic Separation Equipment Are Used in the Food Industry?
There are several types of magnetic separation equipment commonly used in the food processing industry, including:
Plate Magnets: These are flat magnetic plates most often seen in conveyor belts or chutes. They’re typically used to remove metal contaminants from dry products like grains, seed, or pet food.
Grate Magnets: Like plate magnets, grate magnets are also designed for dry ingredient applications. These magnetic separators are made up of several magnetic bars through which the product passes. The magnetic bars collect and remove ferrous contaminants from the product. There are many grate magnet designs suited to various product types, such as flour, grain, sugar, and many more.
Rotary Magnets: These magnets are most effective for dry, sticky, and difficult-to-flow products where bridging is an issue, such as dairy powders or sugar.
Inline Magnets: These types of magnetic separators include designs suited to both dry and wet applications, and high-velocity product lines, pump lines and pneumatic transfers.
Want to learn more about how magnetic separators can keep your food products safe and pure? Be sure to check out our blog covering 5 key HACCP principles related to magnets, which are the cornerstone of any effective magnetic separation food safety management system.
What Are a Few Common Challenges in Food Processing Lines?
One of the main challenges in using magnetic separators in the food industry is the need to make sure that the food products are not contaminated by the magnet itself. To address this concern, many facilities use inline magnets for food processing, with stainless steel alloys that are much less prone to corrosion and are easy to clean and sanitize. However, certain products and processing lines can still present unique challenges when it comes to removing metal contaminants. For example:
Sticky and Abrasive Products: Sticky and abrasive products, such as sugar and cereal, can wear down processing equipment and magnets. Magnattack® has developed a wear-resistance technology, Dura-Slik®, which protects the magnets from abrasive products and wear.
High-velocity powder lines: The Magnattack® Spherical Pneumatic Transfer Magnet and Powder Transfer Magnet are great solutions for high-velocity pneumatic lines and great alternatives to conventional bullet-style and cartridge-style magnets. These highly effective Spherical magnet designs effectively collect and retain metal contamination, as well as minimize bulk density breakdown and blockage.
Dairy products: It is essential that magnetic separators for dairy products have a sanitary design with no crevices or cracks where a build-up of product can occur. Magnattack® has a variety of dairy-grade, USDA-Accepted sanitary designs for a variety of applications.
Another challenge food processors encounter is removing fragments which can damage expensive machinery, from the product. In these cases, some solutions can include sieves and filters, which will collect the contamination and prevent damage from occurring.
Simply put, magnetic separatorsare an essential component of the food processing industry because they help remove ferromagnetic contaminants from food products, increasing the safety and purity of your food. That’s why partnering with an experienced magnetic separation provider is so important.
Magnattack®: Your Trusted Choice for Foreign Metal Control
Magnattack® understands the importance of keeping your food safe for consumers. We’ve provided food manufacturers with dependable solutions that bolster their approach to foreign metal control for over 50 years. Start a conversation with our expert team, or schedule a free consultation to learn more.
For businesses in the food industry, magnetic separation is the secret ingredient for a safe and pure supply chain. It's critical to the production process because it removes metal contaminants from food products.
Magnetic separation is primarily used in solid waste treatment systems to recover or enrich ferrous metals, or in certain processes to remove ferrous materials from solid waste. Overhead magnetic separation equipment is used in some large-scale equipment to recover iron metal prior to crushing.
HACCP 0909MAGSEP 1-2010 is a standard that specifies requirements for final magnetic separation devices used to remove magnetic and weakly ferromagnetic particles from food product streams.
In the field of mineral processing, magnetic separation plays a crucial role. It is employed to separate valuable minerals from gangue materials. Magnetic separators can efficiently remove magnetic minerals from ore, enhancing the purity and quality of the final product.
Magnetic field can be used in the food freezing process and ingredient modification. Magnetic field intervention leads to microbial inhibition and enzyme inactivation. The efficiency of magnetic field exposure depends on various factors.
What are some magnetic separation examples? Used to separate magnetically susceptible minerals, examples of magnetic separation include removing iron-bearing minerals from silica sand used in the production of glass; and cleansing feldspar and clay used in the production of ceramics.
The major disadvantage of magnetic separation methods is that they are not quantitative and require secondary quantification methods, that is, cell counts. Magnetic-based methods can only perform positive and negative selections.
There is a wide selection of magnetic separators that are used in the following industries: Recycling; Aggregate, Mining and Minerals; Grain and Milling; Food Production; Plastics; Non-Woven; and Powder and Bulk.
Recycling centres use magnetic separation often to separate components from recycling, isolate metals, and purify ores. Overhead magnets, magnetic pulleys, and the magnetic drums were the methods used in the recycling industry. Magnetic separation is also useful in mining iron as it is attracted to a magnet.
When food is at a temperature of between 8 - 63°C, this is called The Danger Zone. Between these temperatures the bacteria may grow and make you ill. So, for this reason it is important that food is cooked to steaming hot throughout, rather than warmed, as the high temperature will kill bacteria that may be present.
The ISO 22000 standard enables your organization to: Build and operate a food safety management system within a well-defined and clear framework that is flexible to your business needs and expectations.
The Food Code is published by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). It contains science-based guidance to improve food safety in restaurants, delis, caterers, and others. States, tribes, localities, and territories can use it as a model for their own food safety rules for these establishments.
Magnetic separation: based on the generation of magnetic forces on the particles to be separated, which are higher than opposing forces such as gravity or centrifugal forces. This principle is used to separate ferromagnetic particles from crushed scrap mixtures.
Iron ores and manganese ores are the main ones for which we use magnetic separation. Magnetite and Chromitite ores (both iron ores) use this method on a large scale to remove their impurities. Learn the process of extracting Crude Metal from Concentrated Ore.
Some sands contain a significant proportion of ferromagnetic iron minerals (such as magnetite or pyrrhotite). Grains of these minerals are strongly attracted to a magnet.
Recycling centres use magnetic separation often to separate components from recycling, isolate metals, and purify ores. Overhead magnets, magnetic pulleys, and the magnetic drums were the methods used in the recycling industry. Magnetic separation is also useful in mining iron as it is attracted to a magnet.
Magnetic separation utilizes powerful magnets to pull out ferrous metal contaminants from a processing line, trapping them against the face of the magnet and ensuring they cannot re-enter the material stream.
These separators contain magnetic bars that have a small but very intensive magnetic field. They separate the finest metal particles from powdered dairy products. In addition to ferrous parts, these strong magnetic separators even capture stainless steel particles.
Grate Magnets are used in applications for the Plastics, Food, Grain and Milling, and Powder and Bulk industries. They can be installed in hoppers, pits, chutes, housings, and bins to remove tramp metals from larger flowing materials.
Introduction: My name is Jeremiah Abshire, I am a outstanding, kind, clever, hilarious, curious, hilarious, outstanding person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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