Serial cooling system cuts water and steam consumption
Water conservation is not only a rapidly growing global environmental concern; water is also becoming more costly. Our homogenizers are equipped with a high-temperature condensate aseptic barrier that protects food safety and a serial cooling system. These combine to cut steam consumption by 70% and cooling water consumption by 80% compared to conventional solutions. To understand how we achieve this, it’s useful to look at how serial cooling systems work and why high temperature condensate requires less water and steam consumption.
Water-saving features
The serial cooling water system inside our homogenizers is one important water-saving feature. It saves steam while protecting food safety, since we use a high temperature condensate solution. In aseptic homogenizers, parallel piston cooling consumes more steam than serial cooling systems. In addition, up to 80% of the cooling water can be re-circulated and used again.
Why high temperature condensate requires less water
Regardless of the type of homogenizer in use, steam provided by the plant always needs to be the same temperature when it enters the homogenizer. In conventional machines, using cold barrier condensate, it is necessary to cool the condensate before it can enter the piston cartridge. The majority of the water consumption in these machines comes from this necessary cooling process to decrease the temperature of the condensate. First, the condensate is cooled from its initial temperature down to 100 degrees C, then the phase inversion process turns the steam into water and, finally, the water is cooled to 60 degrees C. The phase inversion process particularly – converting steam into water – requires huge amounts of cooling water, up to and beyond 5000 litres per hour for high capacity machines.
In our homogenizers however, it is not necessary to cool the condensate at all – the machine is simply designed to handle high steam temperatures instead. Our machines thus don’t require the phase inversion step and use only the steam and water required to generate the condensate.
Other features in the homogenizer also contribute reducing utility consumption, including an automatic changeover valve that cuts steam during CIP and machine control equipment limits use of cooling water.
Lowest utility consumption and lowest TCO in the industry
Altogether, this means that our homogenization solution generates a utility savings of 70% on steam and 80% on water compared to conventional designs. This adds up to significantly cut operational costs and environmental impact – and contribute to the lowest total cost of ownership in the industry.
