Dairy farmers can look forward to a radical change to their milking system’s cleaning and disinfection routine by going chemical free, with accompanying reduced costs and improved energy usage according to findings from a DEFRA funded Innovate UK R&D project.
“Oxi-Tech’s Pulse Oxidation (POd) which uses just cold water and low voltage electricity to create ozone, a clean and powerful disinfectant killing bacteria, viruses and fungi has proved to have significant potential to change the current standard operating protocols for milk hygiene on dairy farms and throughout the supply chain,” concluded Advance Milking’s Dan Humphries who managed the project staged at Agri-Tech’s South West Dairy Development Centre.
Equally important, the research team concluded that POd also demonstrated it was a cost-effective CIP method cutting energy costs by 24% and proving to be 50 times more efficient in energy usage compared to existing treatments for automated milking systems.
POd was retro-fitted to the SWDDC’s three robotic milking systems and resulted in the system proving to be a highly efficient disinfectant and extremely effective at removing stubborn biofilm forming bacteria that proved resistant to conventional cleaning. In conjunction with installations across the UK on manual parlours, POd has demonstrated its ability to reduce the need for multiple hot chemical washes per day and completely removed the need for disinfection chemical use in manual and robotic parlours.
The technology also brings improvements to operator safety by eliminating the handling of harmful chemicals. Furthermore, the reduction in the use and disposal of the chemical’s plastic containers will also significantly lower a dairy unit’s Carbon footprint and contribute to its net zero targets.
“The ability to generate a potent but short-lived disinfectant at the point of use from a clean water supply and low voltage electricity, with no concerns about residues in either milk or the environment would be a significant improvement on the status quo both for milk hygiene/food safety and sustainability of the dairy sector not just in the UK but worldwide.
“In addition, initial research suggests that POd may not only be able to replace the current CIP protocols but also improve on them through the control of established and resistant biofilms.”
He added: “There have been very few paradigm shifts in milk hygiene, however Oxi-Tech’s POd system presents a radically different approach that with continued research and development has a significant opportunity to change our approach to dairy hygiene.”
Oxi-Tech’s CEO Paul Morris commented: “POd is already being embraced by farmers, processors and industry influencers alike and systems are being successfully installed on commercial farms, integrating into both existing automated and manual milking systems. Installation is a straightforward process connecting the existing parlour wash system to the Oxi-Tech components accommodated in a stand-alone 1m x 1.5m slimline black steel box, either wall mounted or mobile.
“Once installed, the system is easy to operate; it can be remotely managed, enabled by finely controlled dosing and access from a phone App and it requires minimal back up – just a simple bi-annual service. With absolute minimal running costs, we consider typical return on investment to be two to three years based on two milking robots.”
