Single Chamber vs. Double Chamber Vacuum Sealer
Vacuum packaging is becoming a common tool in food industry as they prolong the shelf life of different items way beyond the previously thought limits. It also provides much effective and efficient storage solutions by reducing the volume of the packed food item. Vacuum sealers are also extensively used in food industry to remove atmospheric oxygen from the food packaging, in order to prevent flourishing of bacteria or any other micro organism such as fungi, preserving the freshness of food. Even outside the food industry vacuum packers are becoming more and more common for other industrial packaging as well, as it completely flushes out air from inside the package, greatly reducing the size or volume.
Vacuum sealers used in today’s world can be categorized in two main types namely single chamber vacuum sealers and double chamber vacuum sealers. As the names suggests, single chamber vacuum sealers contains just one chamber for sealing of items, whereas the double chamber machines have two chambers for the same purpose. Both the machines work on roughly the same principles. Entire product is placed in a plastic sealing bag inside the machine and the lid closed off. Air is removed by a powerful vacuum pump and once all air has escaped, a seal bar tightly seals the product. The lid is then opened to remove the neatly sealed product.
The difference between the two types of sealing machines lies not in how the sealing is done, but rather in terms of capability and sealing capacity. Single chamber machines are more suited to low to medium volume of packaging, as packages above a certain size won’t be able to fit in properly into the only chamber machine has. Small quantities of any solid or liquid can be sealed effectively. These types of machines contain manual lids. On the other hand, double chamber vacuum sealers, as the name might have hinted, have a lot more capacity and bigger size for sealing items. They are used for medium volume packaging and are more suited to vacuum seal liquids. In Double chamber machine, lid usually slides from one side to another, accelerating processing speed as compared to a single chamber model. These machines commonly contain automatic or spring weighted lids to help the operator. Hence, it is an absolute must to use a double chamber model for sealing items of medium or larger size. Double Chamber models are commonly used for packaging of meat and dairy products, confectionery items and cans.
None of the models have any clear victory over the other in terms of performance; it just depends upon what size of item you need to seal. Miner quantities should be packed using single chambered machines while if your desired package size is bigger than diameter of one chamber, used double chambered machine.
