Product treatment using flash pasteurisation

For some years now, Krones has been supplying the producers of soft drinks and fruit juices with equipment for product treatment, incl. flash pasteurisation. The spectrum has meanwhile been extended to include a newly developed shell-and-tube heat exchanger plus a new product deaerator.
The new product/product shell-and-tube heat exchanger utilises the colder product on the outside to cool down the product inside the innermost tubes following UHT heat treatment. This means the product is warmed or heated in a countercurrent configuration without inputting any additional energy, and passed to the heater and then to the heat-holding section.
The actual UHT treatment is provided upstream of the heat-holding section. A product/hot-water module is used here, with a hot-water circuit that heats up the product in a countercurrent configuration to the desired temperature of e.g. 140 degrees Celsius. The product then flows back into the recuperative sectors (inside the innermost tubes) to cool down.

Advantages of flash pasteurisation using the new product/product shell-and-tube heat exchanger:

• smaller heat transfer areas compared to a product/water module 
• very good energy recovery possible 
• significantly lower capital investment and operating costs

Instead of product/product shell-and-tube heat exchangers, a product/water shell-and-tube heat exchanger or a plate heat exchanger can also be used, so as to achieve an optimum in efficiency in terms of energy and heat transfer areas, plus maximised flexibility at different viscosities and with constituents like pulps, fibres, etc.
In Krones’ own process laboratory, the requisite product treatment processes and technologies are formulated following product characterisation. Product samples are examined for the content and size of pulp and fibres, as well as for their dynamic viscosity and constituents.
The output spectrum of the modularised systems ranges from five to 60 cubic metres an hour. As a supplier of process technology, Krones offers interface-free processes, from blending of the basic ingredients and flash pasteurisation all the way through to filling.