We still often struggle with doing the dishes, and sometimes we just want our dirty dishes to magically disappear. If you do not have a dishwasher yet, you will definitely recognize this problem. However, manufacturers do their utmost best to make dishwashing as colourful as possible. You have probably noticed the large variety of detergents in your supermarket, so many choices! Mass flow controllers play an important role in the production process of these detergents. Let me explain why…
Colouring detergents
Detergent itself is transparent or white in colour. To change this, a small amount of colourant (or dye) is added to detergent and that’s the colour you see in the bottle; often green, yellow or red. The colourant does not add anything to the cleaning properties, however, it makes it more attractive and it will help the user to recognize a certain brand.
For the manufacturer a consistent colour of the end-product is of major importance. Every flacon has to be the same colour, you should not see any colour difference between the flacons on the shelves (as the colour is part of their company branding).
What would be an appropriate way to dose these colourants? Pump control can be your solution.
Using Coriolis mass flow meters for accurate dosing
Dosing colourants can be done by using a pump. However, since this is volume flow it is not always the most accurate way. In these kinds of applications accuracy, and moreover, repeatability are crucial for the production process.
Important requirements in applications using colourant are:
- Accuracy: the colourants used are in fact highly concentrated and have to be applied in extremely low doses. Furthermore, the colourants are rather expensive; therefore accurate dosing of the liquid is very much desired as well.
- Repeatability: every flacon of detergent has to have the same colour, therefore the dosing of the colourant has to be consistent, always.
A better solution here would be to combine your pump with a Coriolis mass flow controller; it will give you the opportunity to control your pump and therefore a precise and traceable way of dosing your colourant.