Filling machines for acids, bases and aggressive products
“Corrosive” is not a specification. Hydrochloric acid eats stainless steel; nitric acid does not. Sulphuric acid behaves one way concentrated and another way diluted. Hydrofluoric attacks almost everything, including glass. The same word covers products that need completely different machines.
So we do not quote from the name of the product. We quote from its data sheet: what it is, at what concentration, at what temperature, and how it behaves at the end of a batch.
The first decision is not the machine. It is where the operator stands.
With an aggressive product, the most important thing a filling line does is keep a person away from it.
That is why, for these products, we usually recommend more automation than the output alone would justify. Not to fill faster — to fill with nobody next to the container. On a semi-automatic machine the operator is at the filling point for every container. On an automatic line the pallet goes in, the machine works behind a guarded enclosure, and the operator is somewhere else.
If you are weighing up two machines and one of them removes a person from that area, that is not a comfort feature. It is the reason to choose it.
Material where the product touches. Steel everywhere else.
The exotic materials go where the liquid goes, and nowhere else. The structure stays in stainless steel, and the parts in contact with the product are specified for what you actually fill: titanium, Hastelloy, PTFE, PVDF, PVC, or a combination.
A machine can perfectly well have a titanium wetted assembly and AISI 316L nozzles, or the other way round, if that is what the product asks for. Building the whole machine in the most expensive material available is not engineering: it is not having looked at the problem.
More than eighty nozzle combinations, and the choice is made with your data sheet in front of us.
The product does not stop attacking when the shift ends
Everywhere else on this site, cleaning the filling unit is about protecting the next product. Here it is about protecting the machine.
Hydrofluoric acid, hypochlorite and concentrated acids left standing in the filling unit overnight go on working on it while nobody is watching. It is not good practice to leave any of these products in the machine at the end of a shift — not for an hour longer than the process needs, and certainly not until morning.
So the machine has to be emptied and flushed as routine, quickly, by the operator, not as a maintenance task that gets postponed when the shift runs late. The circuit is drained and purged with product recovery, the filling unit is built with no dead spots where liquid can sit, and where the process requires it the nozzle is cleaned in place.
This is also where having no intermediate product tank stops being an abstract advantage. A volumetric machine carries a tank, its feed pipework and a three-way valve, and every one of those has to be emptied and flushed before the plant goes home. Ours is the nozzle. Why we fill by weight and never by volume.
Sanitising chemistry is aggressive chemistry
A good part of what we fill in this group is not sold as a chemical at all. It is sold as hygiene: caustic soda for cleaning kitchens and food plants, peracetic acid for sanitising, CIP chemicals, disinfectants.
The customer’s industry is food. The product in the container is not.
Peracetic acid in particular is one of the more demanding liquids there is to handle. It is a strong oxidizer, it decomposes on its own, and some of the materials that resist other acids perfectly well will accelerate that decomposition rather than contain it. The wetted parts are chosen for that behaviour specifically, and the venting of the container matters as much as the material.
We have several customers filling peracetic acid. The most recent does it on an automatic Robot Filler line — which is the point made above about automation: with a product like this, the strongest argument for automating is not the output, it is that nobody is standing next to it.
If you fill sanitising chemistry, this is your page, not the detergents one.
Fumes are the other half of the problem
An acid does not only attack what it touches. It attacks what is above it.
The vapour that comes off during filling corrodes the machine from the outside, reaches the operator and, in an enclosed room, accumulates. For these products the options that matter are the ones that deal with the atmosphere: gas hood and fume extraction over the filling point, closed cabin where the operation has to be confined, and overfill detection, because an overflow here is not a cleaning job.
What happens when something fails
With an aggressive product, safe behaviour on failure is not a paragraph in the manual.
Loss of air or power leaves the nozzle closed. No spill, no residual movement, nothing that keeps flowing while somebody works out what happened. Emergency stop cuts electrical and pneumatic power at the same time, and reset is manual and deliberate. The risk assessment is carried out on the configuration actually supplied, not on a generic model.
Containers
From one litre to 1,500. In this group most of what we fill is not steel:
- HDPE drums and jerrycans, the usual container for acids
- Steel drums and barrels, where the product allows it
- IBCs and totes, with the appropriate inner bottle
- Carboys and small containers, for concentrated products and laboratory supply
Which machine fits your line
Any AiCROV machine can fill these products. What decides which one you need is not what you fill — it is how many containers per hour you have to produce, in what format, and how much of the operation you want automated. Every container format, from a one-litre canister to a 1,500-litre IBC, has machines across the whole range, from semi-automatic to fully automatic.
What the product decides is everything inside the filling unit: whether it is filled by immersion or under the bunghole, the materials in contact with it, and how the nozzle itself is driven — push or pull, two-stage coarse and fine opening or proportional, and whether the process needs flow control and continuous pressure.
That is why our first step is a conversation and not a quotation. Tell us your output, your containers and your product, and the configuration follows.
LSG — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for jerrycans and small containers
Semi-automatic weigh filling machine for jerrycans and small containers. No installation: connect power, air and product, and it is ready to fill.
LSB — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for drums
Semi-automatic drum filling machine for 30 to 250 litres: it weighs every drum as it fills, comes preconfigured and is simple to run.
LSC — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for IBCs
For plants that only fill IBCs (totes): quick to set up and configure, and available in an explosion proof version.
SP1 — semi-automatic weigh filling machine for containers on a pallet
Semi-automatic weigh filling of jerrycans, drums and IBCs on a pallet: the operator positions the nozzle and the machine fills to the net weight.
SP2 — semi-automatic filling line for containers on a pallet, with conveyors
Semi-automatic filling of drums and IBCs on a pallet, from 20 to 1,500 litres, by weight, on a preconfigured machine.
SP25 — weigh filling machine with motorised nozzle positioning
This is the machine in the range where the operator stops moving the head by hand. Travel in X, in…
SP3 — automatic filling machine for drums and IBCs on a pallet
With the Robot Filler, this is the most automated machine we build. The operator does not intervene during the cycle…
Robot Filler — fully automatic robotic filling machine for drums and IBCs
Robotic filling of jerrycans, drums and IBCs on a pallet: 3D vision finds each container, then the robot uncaps, fills, caps and seals.
EL2-B — in-line automatic drum filling machine
Automatic in-line filling of steel and plastic drums from 60 to 250 litres, by weight, with uncapping, capping and sealing stations.
EL2-E — in-line automatic filling machine for jerrycans and small containers
Automatic in-line weigh filling machine for liquid and viscous products in metal or plastic canisters, pails and jerrycans with a rectangular base.
Frequently Asked Questions
What material do you use for hydrochloric acid?
Titanium is the usual answer for the wetted parts, but not the only one, and it depends on concentration and temperature. Send us the data sheet and we will tell you what we would fit and why.
Can you fill hydrofluoric acid?
Yes. It is the hardest of them to contain and the material selection is specific to it. It is one of the cases where we want to talk about your process before proposing anything.
Is the whole machine built in the special material?
No, and it should not be. The structure stays in stainless steel and only the parts in contact with the product are specified for it. That is what keeps the machine affordable.
Can the operator stay out of the filling area?
Yes, on automatic machines, and for aggressive products that is usually the strongest reason to choose one.
Can you fill peracetic acid?
Yes, and we have several customers doing it, the most recent on an automatic Robot Filler line. It is an oxidizer that decomposes on its own, and the material selection is not the same as for a mineral acid — some materials that hold up to hydrochloric will accelerate the decomposition of peracetic. It is one of the products we want to see the data sheet for before proposing anything.
We make cleaning chemicals for food plants. Is this the right page?
If what you fill is caustic soda, peracetic acid or CIP chemicals, yes. The customer’s industry is food; the product in the container is aggressive chemistry, and that is what decides the machine.
What about the fumes?
Gas hood and fume extraction over the filling point, and a closed cabin where the operation has to be confined.
Can the product be left in the machine overnight?
It should not be. An aggressive product goes on attacking the filling unit while the plant is closed, so the circuit is drained and flushed at the end of the shift as routine. That is quick here because there is no intermediate tank, no feed pipework and no three-way valve to empty — only the nozzle.
What happens if the power fails during a fill?
The nozzle closes. Without pneumatic pressure it cannot open, so a loss of air or power stops the machine with no spill and no residual movement.
Send us the data sheet of your product.
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