Qdos 60 attributes ideal for dosing application at French winemaker

Watson-Marlow Pumps Group has supplied Qdos 60 metering pumps to Fauchier Company, a France-based specialist in the design and manufacture of automated filtration systems.

'Our customer had to revise their entire filtration process with respect to filtration quality, process standardisation and, above all, the provision of a fully automated control system prior to bottling,' explains the winemaker. 'In addition, they wanted to use telemetry to operate the system by remote control via the intranet.'

The Fauchier Company set about designing a cartridge filtration system fully connected to the factory's IT system. The advantage of the system is the optimised and controlled arrangement of the start-up phases, while sterilisation and cleaning times are also reduced.

For this particular project, Fauchier sought calibrated peristaltic pumps for dosing gum arabic, a natural gum extracted from specific species of African Acacia trees that is used for 'rounding out' tannins in wine to reduce astringency.

Based on a double skid configuration with automatic dosing, the aim was to reduce pulsation and achieve very precise dosage which could be controlled by a flowmeter without a non-return valve in order to perform washes.

Another benefit is the unique design of the patented ReNuTM pumphead which maximises process uptime with no-tools maintenance.

'Importantly for this application, the pumps can be operated by remote control thanks to their analogue function, enabling us to gather information or to change settings remotely,' adds Fauchier.