Case History: Electronic Sorting Secures Production of Gluten-Free Grain envelope Print up
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Cimbria is one of the world’s leading companies within industrial processing, handling and storage of grain and seed, as well as animal feed, foodstuffs and other bulk products.

Case History: Electronic Sorting Secures Production of Gluten-Free Grain

In recent years, the demand for sorters for gluten-free grains has increased. The use of our electronic sorting machines in the cleaning process guarantees healthy products. Due to the growing number of people suffering from gluten sensitivity and celiac disease, the gluten-free industry is becoming increasingly important on a global scale.

Gluten-free products have a tolerance close to zero, which is why grains need to be processed to separate any grain containing gluten. Even the most sophisticated mechanical cleaners cannot ensure the separation of all the grains with gluten, which may be very similar in terms of weight, dimension and shape.

Full-Colour technology is nowadays applied in the gluten-free industry and SEA CHROMEX has become increasingly popular in the modern cleaning process. After the pre-cleaning process, grains are checked by our Full-Colour sorters in order to separate the gluten grains.

This challenging application leads us to utilise the latest inspection devices, combined with the most sophisticated software to assure the highest efficiency and performance in the separation. The basic version of CHROMEX makes use of Full-Colour RGB 4096-pixel cameras that ensure the highest optical resolution in the market of 0.06 mm. The combination of real Full-Colour technology with infrared cameras (NIR and InGaAs) and shapesizing systems optimise the separation of gluten grains and other foreign bodies.

The set-up of CHROMEX is realised through photographic acquisition, comparing a grain to a user-defined accept or reject, identifying it as a real defect or as an accepted element. For this challenging application, it is extremely important to create multiple filters through the HSI (hue, saturation, intensity) and shape-sizing systems to identify all the smallest colour and shape differences.

For this purpose, the EXAGON graphic interface allows userfriendly programming of the CHROMEX, with the chance to use the sorting recipe on multiple sorting units and to acquire real-time statistics.

CHROMEX is one of the few electronic sorters on the market that can recognise similar grains of different nature, such as distinguishing an oat from a barley grain. This can be done with extremely high efficiency when real RGB Full-Colour technology is combined with InGaAs and, if necessary, NIR vision systems. Many gluten-free producers already know that CHROMEX is the ideal solution to guarantee the highest purity of final products to meet the strictest food hygiene and health requirements. Our customers in Italy, Denmark, France, Spain, Germany, US, Canada and in many other countries already benefit from CHROMEX, producing results representing the highest purity and food-safety of the final products.

Besides the separation of grains with gluten, CHROMEX guarantees the most efficient removal of other contaminants such as fusarium, ergot, foreign seeds, vetch, etc. Grains that have not been hulled are sorted from the hulled grains (oat from groats or similar kinds of separations). Allergenic grains can also be separated thanks to CHROMEX technology and the combination of ultimate RGB Full-Colour with InGaAs and NIR technologies. In gluten-free applications, as in any other grain cleaning process, it is very important to obtain a highly concentrated reject. This is why CIMBRIA has focused on and developed a very precise ejection system that provides the highest reject concentration.

All the models are available in single pass, reject resort or reverse sorting. CHROMEX is available in versions from 0.5 to 7 chutes and divided into 1, 2, 3 or even 4 independent sections in order to meet the production needs and expectations of the customer concerned.

The design features of our sorters make them ideal for installation in any grain cleaning system. The exclusive system of optical boxes, including conditioning, tightness under pressure and particular attention to mechanical details, makes CHROMEX the ideal sorter to be installed even in a harsh working environment.

At the Agritechnica exhibition in Hannover, the world’s largest trade fair for agricultural machinery & equipment (2,803 exhibitors and 450,000 visitors), CIMBRIA colour sorting technology proved to be the most complete in the world. At present, none of our competitors worldwide can offer such high optical resolution and combination of real Full-Colour technology with NIR and InGaAs cameras.

In 2018, CIMBRIA will continue to exhibit passion and dedication as it strives to focus on the research and development of new industrial solutions dedicated to gluten-free seeds, grains and food applications.