The purpose of disinfection is to destroy surface microorganisms.
Subsequently, secondary consumption is prevented in the production and packaging stages of the product. Effective disinfection does not necessarily mean that all existing microorganisms are destroyed, but a process that minimizes the consumption of microorganisms that pose a health risk or affect the quality of the product. The only effective disinfectants are the ones that have access to microorganisms.
Furthermore, the activities of disinfectants are usually limited by the presence of organic compounds. Microorganisms are trapped in the remaining product in the production lines, so there is a high probability of survival of these microorganisms even if strong disinfectants are used. The survival of microorganisms depends on their number in the disinfection interval time. Efficient washing is a requirement in the disinfection process. CIP and disinfection processes are necessary for each other, but CIP alone can destroy microorganisms in production lines.
Most of the microorganisms are removed in the CIP process. In addition, some of the materials used in washing have strong alkaline and acid solutions that kill and disinfect. However, their influence is not to the extent of keeping microorganisms such as phages as low as possible.
For this purpose, thermal or chemical agents are used to deal with phages and complete the disinfection process. In past methods, hot water or steam was used so that all production lines were heated at a constant temperature. High temperatures lead to the denaturation of the remaining proteins and their deposition on the surfaces of the equipment. A very thorough CIP process is required before the hot water disinfection process. The use of heat, especially the hot steam method, has the advantage that the surfaces of production lines dry up and the risk of bacterial growth decreases. Also, after heat disinfection, there is no evidence of residual disinfectant.
In the dairy industry, the sodium chlorite solution is considered one of the most important disinfectants. However, all methods that are used in disinfection operations, especially to counter phages, are different from one factory to another based on the amount of contamination and equipment used.
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