Food safety is an essential part of the production process. That’s why both large-scale and small-scale manufacturers use magnetic separation equipment to remove unwanted metal contaminants and foreign objects from their goods.
These powerful units come in a variety of forms, each serving a specific function. In this blog, we will delve into four key types of magnetic separation equipment, highlighting how they contribute to the overall safety and purity of your final product. Keep reading to learn more about these vital tools, and discover what your business can do to keep consumables pure.
Understanding the Four Main Types of Magnetic Separation Equipment
There are four common types of magnets used in the food industry—drawer magnets (often referred to as tube magnets, grate magnets or bar magnets), plate magnets, pneumatic inline magnets (often referred to as Bullet magnets) and liquid trap or finger magnets—each serves a unique purpose to suit different stages of your food processing applications. So, without further adieu, let’s dive in:
Drawer Magnets
Drawer magnets, also known as “grate magnets”, “grid magnets,” or “bar and finger magnets”, are most often used to remove contaminants from dry products such as grains, flour, rice and cereals. Composed of a series of magnetic tubes or bars, they’re arranged in a grid pattern within your housing through which your food product passes, attracting contaminants and retaining them on the surface of the magnet bar. Drawer magnets are suitable for use in virtually every type of food and dairy processing plants, flour and rice mills, or other food manufacturing facilities where dry products are handled.
Plate Magnets
Plate magnets consist of a flat or stepped face plate made of magnetic material. These are installed on the underside of a chute or on conveyor outlets, and aim to remove contaminants from food products as they flow over the plate.
How Can Plate Magnets Help Save Me Money?
Recently, Magnattack® supplied a Plate Magnet System to a Californian winery in the Central Valley wine region. Check out the case study detailing how our solutions helped prevent extensive damage, and more importantly, save them a substantial amount of capital. Plate magnets can be an excellent way to significantly reduce damage to expensive process machinery.
Pneumatic Line Magnets
Often referred to as bullet magnets or cartridge magnets, pneumatic transfer magnets are used in high-velocity blow or vacuum lines, on both dense and dilute phase applications. The Magnattack Spherical Pneumatic Line Magnets offer high-gauss magnetic strength with an engineered fragment retention design. These magnets capture and retain metal chips, fine wear iron and rust flakes from high-velocity flow applications. They come equipped with bellied housing around the aerodynamic magnet, which minimizes pressure change. In return, this helps prevent particle breakdown or density change to your food products.
Liquid Trap or Finger Magnets
Liquid trap magnets or finger magnets provide a trap in which liquid must pass through. They are a conventional way of extracting metal from liquid ingredients, however, there are a number of issues associated with these systems such as bending and difficulty in cleaning. Magnattack® has a number of options for liquid applications which have proven very successful, such as Pressure Pipeline Separators and Retromag Kits.
Magnattack®: Your One-Stop-Shop for All Types of Magnetic Separation Equipment
Let’s face it, high-quality magnetic separation equipment is a very reliable way to keep your food products pure from metal contamination. If you need an extremely effective way to identify metal fragments, collect them, and make your food safer for consumers—good news—Magnattack® is here to help, can help and will help!
We offer a wide range of magnetic separation equipment for a variety of applications. With over 50 years of hands-on experience, we know exactly what it takes to deliver an unmatched level of foreign metal control. Check out our complete listing of magnetic separators for both dry and wet applications, or get in touch with the experts to learn more.
