Freudenberg Tackles Flavor Transfer with Seals Made from Globally-Certified Materials

But what’s great for an individual customer – a cherry-ginger-lime cream soda, for example – can play havoc with the elastomer seals inside the machine. Add in hygienic cleaning requirements and proper food contact certifications and equipment manufacturers can find themselves spending months chasing challenges like flavor transfer, leaks and material compliance approvals.

Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies, a leading specialist in advanced sealing applications, has a portfolio of solutions to resolve these issues. The company, which runs the business operations for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies in the Americas, will showcase a variety of globally-certified material options at the 2018 BevTech®, the annual meeting of The International Society of Beverage Technologists (ISBT), taking place April 30-May 2 in Albuquerque, N.M.

“Flavors are almost never the same. They are a diverse mixture of ingredients with very different chemical properties,” said Christian Geubert, Global Application Engineering Manager for Freudenberg Sealing Technologies’ Process Industries organization. “Some of these chemicals are very good solvents for rubber, which means they can destroy rubber seals and their performance. Only through extensive testing and analysis can industry challenges with flavor transfer and cleaning solutions be isolated, understood and successfully addressed with sealing materials and designs that address an entire range of conditions.”

Geubert will discuss the complex factors associated with flavor transfer and their impact on material properties and performance during a presentation at the 2018 BevTech® meeting. Following this presentation, Geubert and a team of Freudenberg experts will be on hand in booth #45 to answer questions and explain the advantages of a trio sealing materials including 70 EPDM 291, 70 FKM 727, and Fluoroprene® XP. Each of these materials is globally-certified for food contact in the United States (NSF-51) and the European Union (EC 1935/2004).

With its outstanding qualities in critical media, Freudenberg’s 70 EPDM 291 is the first choice for a wide variety of O-Rings, formed parts and diaphragm applications in the food and beverage industry. 70 EPDM 291 is compatible with bag-in-box (BIB) syrups, is suited for exposure to dispenser cleaning fluids, and is specifically formulated to resist flavor transfer.

Dynamic sealing at dispensing temperatures just above 32°F (0°C) is problematic for most Fluorocarbons (FKM) due to reduced flexibility. Freudenberg’s 70 FKM 727 is the only globally-certified, low-temperature FKM in the food and beverage industry. While maintaining compatibility with BIB syrups and cleaning agents, 70 FKM 727 adds best-in-class flexibility in this critical temperature range.

When standard EPDM and FKM materials fail to perform in particularly demanding food and beverage applications – including those found in high-ratio, multi-flavor dispensers – Freudenberg’s Fluoroprene® XP can be called into action. This unique, highly-fluorinated FKM is not only compatible with non-polar materials like oils, it also offers excellent compatibility with polar fluids like acids and bases and provides best-in-class flavor transfer resistance.

More information about Freudenberg’s sealing products for the food and beverage industry is available here.

ISBT holds its annual meeting, BevTech®, each spring to provide a forum for presentation of scientific and technical papers and for meetings of the technical committees. For more information, visit www.bevtech.org.