- Industry: Food & Beverage
- Application: Pasteurizer heat transfer
- Problem: Operational inefficiency and extended downtime due to biofouling.
- Solution: Additions of bioexile® followed by monthly dosis of brominator and biocide
- Results:
Operational Improvements
€ 15k/per year in caustic boil out costs
60 hours of production shut down/year related to caustic boil outs were eliminated
Improved efficiency of the cooling system
Water Savings
15-20 m3 soft cooling tower make-up water/daySustainability
80% reduction in energy intensive caustic usage for pasteurizer cleaning
Reduced water usage
Improved heat transfer, therefore reduced energy usage
Problem
As a leading beverage company, our customer manufactures and distributes high quality drinks throughout the world. As well as being a prominent cider manufacturer, they also provide pasteurising services for third party brewing companies.
Pasteuriser biofouling was seriously affecting production continuity and system efficiency.
Biofilms can wreak havoc inside cooling systems by negatively affecting the heat transfer; they also shield potentially harmful microorganisms such as Pseudomonas and Legionella.
Effective removal of biofilms can massively improve operation efficiency and reduce costs.
Analysis
- Significant biofouling in the pasteuriser led to equipment shut down every 2-3 months in order to perform a 12h caustic “boil out” in an attempt to remove biofilm. Cost to operation was ~€3k per boil out. This does not include the loss of production equivalent to 400,000 cans from each downtime.
- Cooling tower system connected to the pasteuriser was failing to provide an adequate temperature decrease of 5°C back to the pasteuriser. This resulted in cans overheating and “peaking” or exploding and further contributed to increased level of contamination in the cooling water.
- Insufficient cooling meant that 15-20m3 of cold soft water was added to the system daily to provide cooling effect.
Solution
To address the biofouling problem, Chem-Aqua proposed a novel product: bioeXile®. Due to its unique patented formulation, it is significantly more efficient in removing biofilm than traditional treatments.
Since the production runs 24/7 and no downtime was scheduled to stop and clean, the bioeXile® liquid formula was applied on-line as following:
- bioeXile® L at higher dose rate (250ppm) was added at the start of the trial, then 2h later and followed by another dose after 1h.
- Each subsequent addition of bioeXile® discharged a plethora of hidden bacteria- see graph below. Pseudomonas counts which are a great indicator of biofilm where in excee of 200000 CFU/l.
- bioeXile® L was then consistently added once a month to prevent biofilm establishment (150ppm dose).
bioeXile® releases copious amounts of bacteria from biofilms
As part of Chem-Aqua’s 360 Get Clean, Keep Clean approach, further improvements were implemented : brominators with ORP control, use of a cooling inhibitor controlled via a fluorescent probe, once-a-month shot dosing with biocide and staff training in dip slide analysis and bromine checks.
bioeXile®’s positive impacts
1 Year into Chem-Aqua’s program implementation:
- Only one pre-planned boil out has taken place as part of site shutdown. No boil outs have taken place as a result of biofouling/poor water quality.
- Production has remained un-interrupted as a result of improved water quality. Product losses were also drastically reduced.
- Cooling tower is now providing 6-7°C ΔT. As a result, no additional cooling is required, saving €3-€4k per annum in make-up water costs.
Contact Us Today
Transform your water treatment strategy with aquaDART™ and experience unparalleled control, efficiency, and cost savings. Reach out to our team at Chem-Aqua to discuss how aquaDART™ can elevate your water system performance.
