Alfa Laval systems makes operating costs evaporate
Industrias del Maiz Corn Products exchanged their existing evaporation system for a system from Alfa Laval and cut energy consumption in the evaporation system by 40 to 50%.
DATE 2023-11-28At Industrias del Maiz Corn Products Andina’s Cali plant in Colombia, bluecollar workers, managers and engineers alike agree on the importance of the Alfa Laval evaporation system. They say that it’s one of the most significant technological – and cost-saving – developments at the plant.
Meets all the requirements Javier Navarro, Engineering and Maintenance Manager at the plant, says that the state-of-the-art Alfa Laval technology is important to their current process of increasing capacity: ‘‘In terms of design quality, reliability, maintenance and safety – the technology we’ve employed from Alfa Laval meets our specifications in every way.’’
Product
The AlfaVap is a plate heat exchanger tailor made for evapo- ration. The unique design provides much higher thermal efficiency than traditional shell-and-tube evaporators. Much less heat transfer area is required, which means AlfaVap units are more compact and versatile, thus saving costs in transportation, erection and installation. Its plate construction ensure easy and efficient cleaning, prevention of fouling and easy adjustment of capacity simply by adding or removing plates to the existing frame.
Benefits
- AlfaVap and AlfaCond units use about 40 to 50% less energy than previous units
- Requires only about a third of the space used by the old system
- Energy savings allow the company to contribute to local economy with supply of jobs and raw materials
Challenge and solution
Need state-of-the-art evaporation system to help increase capacity at the Cali plant.
The triple-effect evaporation and condensation system includes AlfaVap and AlfaCond. AlfaCond, the world’s first tailor-made plate condenser, was developed specifically for condensing vapours under low pressure or vacuum conditions in evaporation and distillation systems. It has a large vapour inlet.
Customer's voice
The installation of the Alfa Laval equipment has brought significant savings on operating costs.
Javier Navarro, Engineering and Maintenance Manager at the plant in Cali