Cleaning Validation of Food Production Equipment by TOC and TN Measurement

Introduction

Cleaning validation is the process of checking for residues of the previous product after cleaning production equipment and verifying that the amount does not exceed the allowable limit. Factories producing food products attach high priority to cleaning validation from the viewpoints of quality control and safety. In addition to organic matter, food products also contain proteins, amino acids, etc. However, it is possible to evaluate the concentrations of organic matter by total organic carbon (TOC) and proteins and amino acids, which are nitrogen compounds, by total nitrogen (TN). Therefore, proper cleaning of production equipment can be confirmed by measuring the TOC and TN contained in the rinse water after washing the equipment. In general, the Kjeldahl method is widely used to measure proteins in food products, but time-consuming manual work is necessary, as analysis, distillation, etc. of individual samples is performed by using multiple reagents and implements. However, if measurements are performed with a system consisting of a thermal decomposition-chemiluminescence TNM-L total nitrogen unit added to a Shimadzu TOC Analyzer TOC-L, simultaneous measurement of TOC and TN is possible quickly in a single operation requiring only about 5 minutes. Moreover, automatic measurement of multiple samples is also possible by using an autosampler. This application news introduces an example in which the effect of cleaning was confirmed by measuring the TOC/TN of the rinse water when cleaning a container in which vinegar had been introduced, using Shimadzu TOC-L_CPH and TNM-L.

May 28, 2018 GMT