TL;DR Summary
Sustainable manufacturing and valve technology are closely connected. Valves aren’t just flow control components, they help reduce waste, energy loss and emissions across industries like food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, chemicals and wastewater treatment.
Selecting the right valves, maintaining them and integrating smart automation can transform industrial efficiency. Smart valve systems with IO-Link technology now enable real-time monitoring, predictive maintenance and better resource management. These innovations are key to achieving net-zero goals, improving safety and ensuring long-term operational sustainability.
As pressure mounts on industries to cut emissions and operate more efficiently, sustainability has become a strategic priority in manufacturing. While much attention is paid to energy sources and waste management, one often-overlooked component plays a silent but essential role: the industrial valve.
Valves are far more than simple flow control devices. When integrated correctly, they form the backbone of resource-efficient processes, helping reduce waste, energy loss and environmental risk.
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Across sectors like food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pulp and paper and wastewater treatment, sustainable manufacturing and valve performance go hand in hand.
Valves: These are the Cornerstone of Sustainable Manufacturing
Valves are the key factor in regulating and controlling flow in an industrial process. They are used for isolating equipment, maintaining pressure, regulating and controlling flow in fluidic systems.
Valves need to be technically selected properly so they can efficiently regulate and control flow in these processes. Selecting the right valve can make the process more sustainable.
- Reducing Energy Waste, which, with precision control, will help reduce the use of steam, gas or liquids depending on the process and the part of the process where the valve is located.
- Using smart valve sensors on automated valves with built-in diagnostic tools to help detect early signs of wear, valve drift, or seal failure before downtime occurs.
- Checking your valve regularly and maintaining it can help reduce leaks and fugitive emissions. This also helps with plant health and safety and Environmental compliance.
- Reusing resources in a closed-loop system reduces the number of resources being used, which is good for the overall environment and, in some cases, helps with lowering costs.
- Integrating Automation into your plant can improve the overall performance of the valves and the manufacturing process. This will improve and reduce maintenance by optimising the fluid control system and more.
Applications Across Diverse Process Industries
Food, Beverage and Dairy Manufacturing
In the food and beverage industries, for example, Dairy and brewing, the need for hygienic valves is of the utmost importance. Hygienic valves must be compliant with the UK & Europe's Strict hygienic standards. These valves are used in a lot of sustainable processes.
These include reducing the cleaning cycles, which lowers the water usage and chemicals needed for the cleaning process, as hygienic valves are easier to clean with their stainless-steel designs.
It’s important to select stainless steel valves engineered for full drain ability and low holdup volume to minimise product waste and the rinse time.
For example, in larger dairy processes, aseptic double-seat mix-proof valves are more likely to be used to keep the products and chemicals from the cleaning fluids separated. This again contributes to both health and safety and the overall efficient operation of the process.
Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences
In the pharmaceutical industry, product purity is key and this is linked to sustainability. Purity, contamination control and waste reduction. Sanitary valves, another name for hygienic valve systems, support the recovery of solvents and batch consistency.
These and production all contribute to greener operations in the plant. Integrating High-performance valves with feedback controls gives precise dosing, reducing waste, which all proves product yield.
By introducing these systems to the pharma process, it will reduce cleaning time and energy consumed while keeping compliant with FDA and all standards required for an operational plant.
Valve Selection and System Design for Sustainability
For food and beverage manufacturers to truly support sustainable manufacturing, selecting the correct valve must go beyond statistics like pressure rating and materials selection. Engineers and the plant designers should consider a few other aspects.
– Actuation type: Engineers should consider whether they will use Pneumatic or electric actuators, or in some cases, both, as they can significantly impact energy usage.
– Accuracy of Control: Certain valves with modulating functions can prevent utility overuse.
– Choice of Material: Corrosion-resistant materials such as stainless steel or bronze can reduce the maintenance of a valve substantially.
– Automation Compatibility: Readiness to be installed with switchboxes, positioners and PLCs enables smart control and predictive maintenance.
Closing the Loop: Wastewater, Chemicals and Pulp & Paper
Industries that require intensive water usage, like pulp and paper, chemical and water treatment, require the careful management of effluent, slurries and chemical dosing.
For abrasive media, knife gate valves, diaphragm valves and globe valves are used frequently. When these are paired with smart intelligent control systems, they ensure accuracy when dosing and this helps with chemical use and reduces contamination.
In the bleaching process of pulp, modulating control valves can optimise chemical dosing, like chlorine dosing, reduce the overall chemical usage and contribute to improving the carbon footprint on the environment.
Smart Valves and IO-Link Technology: The Next Step in Sustainable Process Control
In current times, manufacturing plants are seen to be adopting more and more digitisation to support their sustainability strategy and valves are no exception in this process. Manufacturers are introducing IO-Link technology and smart sensor integration and this is redefining the performance of valves and how they communicate in an automated system.
Fitting valves with IO-Link capable feedback modules, position sensors or actuators can transmit detailed information and diagnostic performance data in real time. This data includes wear patterns, temperature exposure, cycle counts and valve position. This date was once invisible and is now available to operators with digitisation.
This transparent data lets the maintenance team work with predictive maintenance and not reactive, which is the case without data that IO-Link tech can bring to a manufacturing process.
Address the inefficiencies before they become an issue, like leaks, energy loss and unplanned shutdowns. Also, over time, this contributes to reducing waste and equipment turnover, which are both key factors in sustainability goals.
With reliability and hygiene paramount in sectors like Pharmaceuticals, Food and Beverage and Dairy, IO-Link Technology enables valves to signal that their seals are nearing the end of life or when conditions are changing and the optimum range is dropping. This ensures product integrity while also minimising cleaning and water consumption, including chemical usage.
In Distilleries and high-energy usage plants, smart valves enable steam and heat control to be fine-tuned and improve efficiency without compromising the stability of the process. With the ability to continuously monitor and optimise performance through IO-Lnk transforms valves from static components into smart assets with each of them actively contributing to lower carbon emissions and enhancing operations and efficiency in the plant.
By Integrating Smart valves into valve process systems, manufacturers are making huge strides towards net zero and a sustainable process.
Enabling a Smarter, Cleaner Future
With Industries and Technologies becoming more widespread, automated valve systems are becoming the new normal in most manufacturing processes. These systems are a large part of a manufacturer’s net-zero goal for sustainability in their process.
The feedback from automation enables the valves to provide real-time insights on their performance, giving the maintenance teams quick leak and wear identification and flow imbalances in the process.
Having these smart systems in place that adjust accordingly to load demands, they support and help predict maintenance, prevent over-pressurisation, all of these are key to a sustainable process and they reduce cost and the carbon output of a manufacturing plant.
Net Zero is not so far on the horizon and there is more pressure on companies to meet their obligations. Manufacturers must look at every part of their processes and systems to improve sustainability. Valves are the cornerstone of achieving this goal.
FAQs
What role do valves play in sustainable manufacturing?
Valves regulate, isolate and control fluid flow efficiently, helping reduce waste, energy use and environmental risk.
How can smart valves improve sustainability?
Smart valves equipped with IO-Link sensors provide real-time diagnostics that enable predictive maintenance and reduce leaks, emissions and downtime.
Why is valve selection important?
Choosing the right valve type, actuation method and materials ensures optimal energy use, minimal maintenance and long-term durability.
Which industries benefit most from sustainable valve systems?
Food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, pulp and paper and wastewater treatment industries rely on advanced valve technology to meet sustainability targets.
How do automated systems support net-zero manufacturing?
Automation and digital monitoring enhance process control, prevent over-pressurisation, optimise energy consumption and help plants reach net-zero emissions.
