Trending in CO2 cylinder filling: Preventing CO2 cylinder contamination

As the summer season is upon us, the usual spike in demand to repair and/or upgrade carbon dioxide (CO2) cylinder filling equipment is present. But this year is a little different. Over the past couple of years, the industry has been encouraged by beverage groups and major bottling companies to comply with regulations to prevent refilling a cylinder with “contamination”.

The most common contamination would be residual water that may have migrated into an empty, open cylinder or back-feeding from a supporting system. The requirement, from industry associations (Compressed Gas Association and others), has been to invert every cylinder, prior to filling, to determine the possibility of contamination (i.e. water or soft drink syrup). Several alternative methods to cylinder inversion, although not recommended, are being followed including tare weight checking, residual pressure valve installation and internal visual inspection.