SPECIAL SECTION | Valves & Actuators
The Critical Role of Valves in Industrial & Food Processing Applications
Thoughtful valve selection is an important contributor to long-term process reliability.
Dave Loula | ITT Engineered Valves
Viviana Rodríguez | APV
| IMAGE 1: Some hygienic diaphragm valves, like the ones shown here, have embedded technologies that allow for a more streamlined installation and maintenance process, delivering less downtime, longer preventative maintenance cycles and greater production capacity. (Image courtesy of ITT Engineered Valves)
Valves rarely receive much attention when a process is running smoothly. In fact, many people only consider valves for their most basic function in an industrial manufacturing environment—starting, stopping or regulating the movement of liquids, gases and slurries through a system. However, these components actually play a critical role in everything from maintaining product quality in food processing facilities to protecting equipment in some of the industry’s harshest operating environments.
Because of their influence on system performance, valve selection can directly affect equipment uptime, maintenance costs, product quality and worker safety. The demands placed on a valve in a mineral processing plant, for example, are vastly different from those in a food or pharmaceutical facility. As a result, selecting the right valve requires a clear understanding of both the process and the operating environment.
Understanding Common Valve Types
No single valve type is appropriate for every application. Each design addresses specific operating conditions, flow requirements and process objectives. While hundreds of valve configurations exist, a handful of designs account for the majority of applications across industrial and hygienic processing environments.
- Butterfly valves are among the most widely used valve types due to their compact design and versatility. Commonly employed for flow isolation and basic throttling applications, butterfly valves provide an economical solution across many industries. In sanitary environments, specialized designs incorporate smooth product-contact surfaces and hygienic seals that support effective cleaning and reduce contamination risks.
- Single-seat valves are the second most widely used valve type in hygienic applications after butterfly valves, offering high-level leakage protection through a dual sealing mechanism that combines metal-to-metal and elastomer-to-metal contact, resulting in more reliable shutoff performance. In addition, ball-shaped single-seat valves provide an elevated level of hygiene, with their optimized internal geometry minimizing dead zones, ensuring complete drainage and significantly reducing the risk of bacterial growth.
- Mixproof valves are double-seat valves designed to safely manage two incompatible fluids within the same valve by ensuring reliable separation, typically through independent seals and a leakage chamber that prevents any mixing in the event of seal failure. By maintaining this controlled separation between product streams, mixproof valves allow cleaning and production processes to be carried out simultaneously without risk of cross-contamination, thereby reducing downtime and optimizing plant utilization.
- Aseptic valves are used in parts of the process where sterility and contamination control are critical, such as in applications involving extended shelf-life products, infant formula, products with live microorganisms, ultra-high temperature (UHT) products, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics, where protecting product integrity is essential. These valves maintain a barrier between the product and the environment throughout processing, with full clean-in-place (CIP) and sterilize-in-place (SIP) capabilities, ensuring that microorganisms cannot enter or survive within the system.
- Diaphragm valves are particularly useful in applications involving corrosive chemicals or high-purity process fluids. By separating the process media from the valve’s moving components through a flexible diaphragm, these valves help protect internal mechanisms while minimizing contamination risks. This characteristic makes them valuable in both industrial chemical handling and hygienic manufacturing environments. Hygienic diaphragm valves are the most common valve used in biopharmaceutical drug production.
- Knife gate valves are commonly used in heavy-duty industrial services to handle fluids containing solids, fibers or abrasive particles. Their design allows the gate to cut through challenging media, making them well suited for mining, wastewater treatment and pulp and paper applications. Durability and resistance to wear are critical performance attributes in these demanding operating conditions.
Matching Valve Design to Process Requirements
While many of the valves listed above serve the same fundamental purpose across industries, the conditions in which they operate often dictate very different design requirements.
In industrial applications such as mining, metals processing, power generation and chemical manufacturing, valves must withstand abrasive media, corrosive chemicals and high pressures. Reliability is often measured by a valve’s ability to resist wear and minimize maintenance demands over time. A valve selected for these environments must deliver durability under conditions that can quickly degrade standard equipment.
While performance and durability are also important in food, beverage, dairy and pharmaceutical processing facilities, those applications present a different set of priorities. Securing continuous operation while preventing contamination and maintaining product integrity is critical. Valves must support rigorous cleaning and sterilization procedures, eliminate risks for accidental cross-contamination and be able to automate the function to support 24/7 operation. Material selection, automation capabilities and cleanability become just as important as flow control performance.
These differing requirements highlight why valve selection goes beyond simply matching pressure and flow specifications. Experienced operators recognize that many valve issues stem from application mismatch. A valve that performs reliably in one process may prove unsuitable in another if key factors—such as its position within the production plant, the media requirements, the cleaning process or the cycling frequency—are not properly considered during selection.
This means that the same valve type may be engineered and specified differently depending on the application and its position within the process. For example, a hygienic single-seat valve may perform adequately in handling precooked or low-risk products; however, in more critical applications such as infant formula production—where sterility and contamination control are paramount—an aseptic version of the same valve is preferred to ensure product safety. Selecting the appropriate valve design based on process risk, hygiene requirements and cleaning or sterilization needs is essential to maintaining product integrity and complying with stringent hygienic standards.
The Importance of Proper Valve Selection
Selecting the appropriate valve requires a thorough understanding of both the process environment and the conditions the equipment will encounter throughout its service life. Failure to account for factors such as media characteristics, operating temperatures, pressure requirements and cleaning procedures can compromise product safety, which is the primary objective of hygienic valve design and application.
In many facilities, the true cost of valve selection is not realized until years after installation. A valve that appears suitable on paper may require frequent maintenance, create cleaning challenges or contribute to unplanned downtime if the broader process conditions were not fully considered during specification writing. In food production, the consequences can extend beyond equipment reliability to include product loss, contamination concerns and regulatory compliance issues.
As process systems become more sophisticated, the role of valves continues to grow in importance. Industrial operations require equipment capable of enduring severe mechanical and chemical stresses, while hygienic manufacturers depend on valve designs that safeguard product integrity and support rigorous sanitation standards. Despite these differences, the objective remains the same: matching valve technology to process requirements in order to achieve safe, efficient and reliable performance.
The most effective valve is the one that is properly matched to the application. Whether handling an abrasive slurry in a mining operation or safeguarding product quality in a food processing facility, thoughtful valve selection remains one of the most important contributors to long-term process reliability.
Dave Loula is director, products and markets for ITT Engineered Valves headquartered in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Loula is responsible for product, market and business strategy for engineered valves. For more information, visit engvalves.com.
Viviana Rodríguez is global portfolio leader—dispersion, pumps and valves for APV, an ITT company, where she leads product strategy. For more information, visit spxflow.com/apv.
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