Louisiana Chemical Equipment Company

Unused 17000 lbs/hour (7748 kg/h) freeze concentration plant. Designed and engineered by GEA Messo PT. Freeze concentration is one of the methods for liquid food concentration. This GEA plant is designed as four identical freeze concentration units to process the supplied amount of liquid beverage solution by using crystallizers. By means of crystallization the extracted beverage solution of 6.5 – 7.5 wt% will be concentrated 4-5 fold by removing pure water. The concentrated beverage flow of 34 wt% will be used as a feed for the drying stage. A total of 17000 lbs/hr (7748 kg/hr), Each line produces 4250 lbs/hr (427 kg/hr) of concentrated liquid solution and 3330 lbs/hr (1510 kg/hr) of pure water. Concentration process consists of three main parts: 1. Crystallization part: the system has (4) identical lines, and each line has (2) crystallization stages with a 3000 gallon Stainless Steel Double Wall crystallizer on each stage. The crystal production is obtained by introducing a cooling liquid (dynaline) via the jacket on the crystallizer wall. 2. Separation part: The ice crystals produced in the crystallizers need to be separated from the beverage liquid in the wash column. The slurry is separated in the wash column in a pure water stream and a liquid stream. The pure water stream leaves the plant and the liquid stream is returned to crystallizer. Part of this liquid stream is used as a feed for the first stage crystallizer, to compensate for the ice production to the second stage and the final production of concentrated beverage liquid. 3. Final product: The latter stream is produced via production vessel. From crystallizer, a slurry flow is circulated over the production vessel via product slurry pump. The production vessel contains a filter, what provides the discharge of a concentrated, ice free, beverage stream. Via product output pump PU65457 this high concentrate beverage flow is discharged from the freeze concentration plant for further processing. This GEA plant can be used in the pharmaceutical and food and beverage applications such as Fruit & vegetable juices, Coffee & tea extracts, Herbal extracts, Beer, Wine, Cider and Vinegar

 

1. Feed Tank
2. Crystallizer Stage 1
3. Washcolumn
4. Crystallizer Stage 2
5. Ice Transfer Pump
6. Product Slurry Pump
7. Production Vessel 
8. Product Output Pump
9. Melter
10. Washwater Circulation Pump
11. Product Heater
12. Buffer Vessel Temper
13. Heater Cooling
14. Temper pump stage 1&2
15. Expansion Vessel Temper
16. Main Temper Pump