How Does Pouch Filling and Sealing Machine Works?
Pouch filling and sealing machine is packaging equipment that fills premade pouches with the product and then seals them shut. Pouch fill and seal machines come in two main varieties: Rotary and inline. For the purpose of today’s article, we are diving deeper into the more popular rotary layout. This machine design conserves valuable plant floor space and is designed with packaging simplicity top-of-mind.
How Does A Doypack Machine Work?
1. Pouch loading
Preformed pouches are first loaded into the bag magazine of the liquid filling and sealing machine. This is a manual process to be completed at regular intervals by an attentive human operator.
2. Pouch Gripping
When a pouch is detected in the magazine by a proximity sensor, it is grasped with vacuum suction pads and lifted to a set of bag grippers, which will consistently hold the bag through its entire journey to each station of the pouch filling and sealing machine.
3. Optional printing/embossing
If the date or lot codes are required on the finished package, this station can be fitted with printing or embossing equipment. Inkjet printers are recommended, but thermal transfer options are available. The embossing option places raised characters into the bag seal area.
4. Pouch opening
At this step, vacuum suction pads grasp the outside of the liquid pouch and gently open the bag. If the pouch is fitted with a zipper, vacuum suction will open the bag, and opening jaws catch the top side of the bag to open it. In either case, a blast of clean air is used to ensure the pouch is fully open and ready to be filled.
5. Liquid product filling
A pre-specified dose of the liquid product is now pumped into the pouch by a liquid piston filler that can draw product from a holding tank or hopper. The specifications of the filler are dependent upon the liquid PRODUCT PROPERTIES AND VISCOSITY. In general, liquid pumps can handle anything from water-like products to thick sauces with particulates.
In the case of a solid + liquid product mixture like soup or MREs, this station will dispense the solid product only. A settler of the Doypack machine will ‘shake’ the bag to encourage solid components to the bottom of the pouch.
6. Sealing
Sealing is the final stage of a pouch filling and sealing machine. A cooling bar now passes over the sealed portion of the pouch to strengthen and flatten the seam.
