Dispersing Ingredients in the Production of Soft Drinks

Overview

This case study shows how a soft drink syrup manufacturer improved the dispersion of sugars, gums, starches, and flavor oils by replacing traditional Tri-blenders®, eductors, and piston homogenizers with the Quadro Ytron® XC Powder Disperser. The new inline system enabled single-pass, lump-free dispersion and sub-micron oil emulsification, while significantly reducing batch time and maintenance costs.

Challenges

• Efficiently dispersing acacia and arabic gums, sugars/starches, flavor oils, and preservatives into water.
• Traditional Tri-blender® / Eductor setups required multiple passes to incorporate powders fully.
• A piston homogenizer was needed to reduce oil droplet size and avoid color ringing in bottles, but it was expensive to maintain.
• Soft drink syrup suppliers needed quick, lump-free dispersion and emulsification to ≤ 0.5 microns without relying on high-maintenance homogenizers.
• Overall process complexity and operating cost were too high with multiple pieces of equipment.

Solutions

The manufacturer trialed the Quadro Ytron® XC Powder Disperser in a recirculation loop for inline dispersion of gums and other ingredients. During the trial:

• Approximately 95 lbs/min of gums and other powder ingredients were incorporated, lump-free.
• Color and flavor crystals were completely dissolved in a single pass.
• Flavor oil was introduced via the Clean-In-Place (CIP) port at about 9 USGPM, achieving < 0.5 micron droplet size for a stable emulsion.
• Because consistent product quality was achieved in a single pass, the recirculation loop was no longer required.

At production scale, a Quadro Ytron® XC3 model was implemented for high-capacity soft drink syrup manufacturing:

• Gums, syrups, and other ingredients were incorporated at approximately 400 lbs/min.
• Overall batch time was reduced from 6 hours to about 45 minutes.

Results

• Single-pass, lump-free dispersion of sugars, gums, and oils into water.
• Stable oil emulsions with droplet sizes < 0.5 micron, eliminating the need for a piston homogenizer.
• Batch time reduced from 6 hours to approximately 45 minutes at production scale.
• Throughput up to ~400 lbs/min of ingredients with the XC3 production model.
• Lower operating and maintenance costs compared to traditional multi-step systems.
• Repeatable, consistent product quality with simplified processing equipment.