The tester will give beverage companies the ability to have a verifiable tester that can measure the shelf life of beverages in plastic bottles. No other similar unit exists in the marketplace,Mocon stated.
Currently, bottlers and bottle manufacturers rely on a variety of lengthy calculation methods to determine shelf-life and product quality under a variety of conditions.
Mocon's Permatran-C Model 10 will graphically display projected shelf life, based on a user-specified loss limit, in a matter of hours. The loss limit is the amount of carbon dioxide the carbonatedbeverage can lose before it is considered bad by the company.
The Permatran-C measures the carbon-dioxide transmission rate of individual plastic carbonated beverage bottles. The non-destructive test takes about three hours or more to complete its analysis.
The tester can be used with plastic bottles ranging from 250 ml to 2.5 liters. The tester uses an internal battery allowing it to be placed in an environmental chamber for temperature profiling.Beverage makers often test how their beverages' shelf life will vary according to the temperatures they may face before a consumer drinks them.
The unit's portability also allows it to be used as a tester during processing runs and not just in the laboratory.
The tester's operator begin a test with the push of a button. When each test is completed, the data can be downloaded onto a personal computer. From there the information can be printed foranalysis.
Minneapolis-based Mocon is targeting the tester at carbonated soft-drink manufacturers, beer manufacturers and their bottle suppliers.