1.Pre-cleaning: The first step is to remove dirt, labels and impurities from the outside of the bottle. This can be accomplished by soaking, rinsing with a high-pressure water gun, or mechanical scraping.
2.Sorting and Screening: Bottles are inspected for breaks, cracks or severe deformation, and substandard bottles are removed.
3.Soaking: Bottles are immersed in hot water containing detergent to soften and remove residual substances such as beer residue, dirt and grease from the bottle.
4.Brushing: The interior and exterior of bottles are scrubbed using a rotating brush or high-pressure jetting device to completely remove stains.
5.Lye Cleaning: Sometimes an alkaline solution is used to further remove stubborn stains and organic matter.
6.Rinsing: The bottle is rinsed several times with plenty of water to ensure that the detergent and residual stains are completely removed.
7.Disinfection: High-temperature steam disinfection, chemical disinfectant immersion (e.g. chlorine disinfectant) or UV irradiation are used to kill microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses and fungi that may be present.
8.Drying: The bottles are dried by hot air drying or natural drying to achieve a dry state and prevent microorganisms from growing again.
9.Quality inspection: Final inspection of the cleaned and sterilized bottles to ensure that their cleanliness, integrity and sterility meet the criteria for re-use.
The specific operations and parameters of these steps are adjusted according to the different cleaning equipment and process requirements to ensure that the recycled glass beer bottles meet the hygiene and quality requirements and can be safely reused for filling beer.
