Electromagnetic Beerline Cleaning Using Radio Frequency Signals

A study on radio frequency (RF) beer-cleaning is reported. Particularly, a device used to generate pulse-wide modulation (PWM) signals and a simple antenna dipole arrangement, wound around the beerline pipe, has been shown to mitigate yeast generation. This setup not only reduces and simplifies maintenance of the pipes but can also reduce operating costs. A particular study was completed by using a 60 V PWM signal, ranging from 1.6 to 6 kHz. This not only reduced the yeast build-up by more than 75%, but also improved the manual cleaning cycles from 1 week to 4 weeks. To the best knowledge of the authors, no similar beerline cleaning system which adopts antenna and electromagnetic engineering principles has been reported previously in the open literature.