Inhibiting bacterial growth and preventing secondary contamination are essential for ensuring food safety, which requires advanced sterilization equipment and technology.
As reported in China Food News by Qiu Desheng, 2008 was a tumultuous year for China's food industry. Due to food safety issues, Sanlu, a giant in the production and sales of dairy products with assets worth billions, collapsed. Abroad, there were also several severe cases of food poisoning caused by microbial contamination, resulting in fatalities. One of the indicators of microbial contamination is the total number of colonies. In national inspections, problems of exceeding colony counts have almost always been found. This is also the main reason for the consistently high disqualification rates of products such as popsicles, mooncakes, infant rice powder, instant noodles, meat products, puffed snacks, and fried snacks. Is it really impossible to solve the problem of excessive microorganisms in food?
Mr. Zhou Lifa, project manager of Shanghai Nena Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., which specializes in food sterilization technology research and equipment manufacturing, believes that using advanced sterilization equipment and scientific disinfection processes can completely control the growth and reproduction of microorganisms, effectively ensuring the hygiene and safety of food.
According to Mr. Zhou Lifa, the main reasons for exceeding microbial index standards are: first, there are many small enterprises without the economic capacity to invest in purification and disinfection equipment; old equipment cannot guarantee the production of qualified food. Second, the production environment is too poor; because the production environment does not meet the conditions required to produce qualified products, it leads to secondary contamination of the product, causing the microbial index to exceed standards. Third, the awareness of food safety is weak; there is insufficient supervision of employee quality and raw materials, and a lack of food safety management systems. Fourth, the level of production technology is low; cross-repetition during the making, turnover, and storage of food increases the frequency of secondary contamination. Fifth, technical personnel in enterprises enter the misconception of microbial killing, leading to the already invested purification and disinfection equipment not being fully utilized or purchasing incorrect microbial killing equipment; this situation is quite common. All these factors may cause microbial contamination in food, among which air-borne microbial secondary contamination is the culprit for the total number of colonies in food exceeding standards. Cooling, filling, and packaging are the most severely affected stages for microbial secondary contamination.
To kill microorganisms in workshop air under dynamic (human) conditions, dust must first be removed from the air; otherwise, it is impossible to continuously control the total number of bacteria and air cleanliness. At the same time, detailed consideration must be given to the content of sugar, starch, cooking oil fumes, etc., in the air, as well as the workshop volume, humidity, temperature, airtightness, product properties, human/material flow, etc. Based on this, Shanghai Nena Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. has custom-designed dynamic air sterilization equipment for food enterprise customers, which can not only control microbial secondary contamination but also make the workshop cleanliness reach above 300,000 grades.
It is understood that the inspiration for the dynamic sterilization equipment process comes from how fresh the air feels after a heavy rain; rain can wash away dust in the air. The principle is: use washing liquid to enter the device's nasal cavity to quickly wash away the polluted air and wash the dust into the washing liquid; through the action of a pressure pump, input the dust into an automatic dust removal filter to filter out dust and discharge pollutants, thereby achieving the effect of automatically removing dust and purifying the air. This process has low wind resistance and is constant (15-20P), can replace medium-efficiency filters, does not form secondary pollution, and is called the dust removal method. According to customer needs, configure chemical reagents such as biological enzymes, ozone water, alkali water, etc., in the washing liquid to absorb the heat emitted by the motor group to maintain a constant temperature, quickly neutralize and decompose radioactive substances and gaseous pollutants in the air, which is called the neutralization method. Use aluminum honeycomb as a carrier, with a certain amount of nano-level nickel, titanium dioxide material, photocatalytic material attached to the surface, synthesizing a metal photocatalyst net; under specific light source irradiation, continuously adsorb—catalyze—decompose, to remove bacteria, viruses, and harmful gases in the air, which is called the sterilization method.
According to Mr. Zhou Lifa, project manager of Shanghai Nena Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., the NCL brand air disinfection equipment launched by the company is a dust collector and transporter. During transportation, it synchronously kills bacteria and viruses, ensuring the long-term efficient normal operation of the equipment. Other certain air purification and disinfection equipment or laminar flow facilities are purely dust and bacteria collectors (vacuum cleaners); as working time extends, the disinfection efficiency gradually decreases, requiring frequent replacement of filtration equipment to ensure work effects. For example, using one NCL-2 type disinfection equipment from Shanghai Nena Environmental Technology Co., Ltd., in a 200 cubic meter workshop with people (dynamic), the indoor air cleanliness can reach above 300,000 grades, and the killing rate of mold, E. coli, etc., in the air can reach 99.9%. This disinfection equipment uses a 220-volt power supply, consuming about 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity in 8 hours, and can achieve disinfection effects within half an hour of turning on.
It is understood that the dynamic sterilization equipment developed by Shanghai Nena Environmental Technology Co., Ltd. has been applied in domestic food enterprises. Its application effect in a certain food enterprise in Taian, Shandong is: air cleanliness reaches 10,000 grades, the total number of fallen bacteria is less than 796cfu/m3, oxygen content is greater than 19.6% (sufficient oxygen can eliminate the "stuffy jar" phenomenon in workshops), and effectively extends the shelf life of semi-finished products. It is learned that the company plans to take various marketing measures to provide more food enterprises with this superior performance sterilization and disinfection equipment and application technology.