Vertical Farming Tower Garden Cleaning
Background:
Indoor vertical farming is a sustainable agricultural initiative that can produce more food from fewer land and water resources. To help achieve this, vertical farming uses food-growing towers that can be as tall as 15 ft. and weigh as much as 30 lbs. Indoor food growers need to keep their environments clean and free of unwanted bacteria to prevent food contamination. each. Therefore, tower garden cleaning is essential to food safety.
Parts Cleaning Challenge:
After each cultivation, the food growing towers need to be thoroughly cleaned to remove organic plant material and soil. Consequently, manually cleaning the towers by hand is a tedious and cumbersome process.
Solution/System:
In this case, the solution was a C-14 conveyor washer that automatically cleans the tower garden sections after each cultivation. Farmers cultivate the food and subsequently remove most of the growing soil for re-use. The metal growing sections are then sent through the conveyor washer where they are blasted with hot water to remove residual dirt. Compressed air at the end of the wash section blows water off of the parts. The sections are then ready to be re-packed with dirt and seeded. The single-stage, recirculated spray module has an increased length of 144” and processes parts at 33 FPM. A special belt was designed to hold the parts in place and special manifolds ensure that both the ID and the OD of the sections are cleaned.
The system also features:
- 350-gallon heated tank
- 10 HP pump
- marine clean-out door
- hinged canopy access lids for complete access
- Allen Bradley PLC & 600 Panelview
- multiple water level controls
- electronic eye sensors at the load and unload ends
- stainless steel construction.
Please contact us to learn about more cleaning applications like this!
