Country
UK
Application
Food & Beverage
Water source
Industrials Water
Filtration solution
4 x SAF-6000
Background
As part of the sugar-making operation, a British sugar company needed to upgrade its existing filtration system to filter thick juice/syrup prior to the crystallisation process. The previous filtration system consisted of much older screen filters which were coming to the end of their serviceable life. The company wanted to filter the viscous syrup and was exploring options to use less of it to backwash the filters.
Challenge
The company was looking for a cost-effective upgrade to the screen filtration which would use a much lower percentage of sugar syrup during backwash. The existing site had a limited space available for any replacement system and as such it needed a solution which could fit into the space available. The very thick syrup (75 Brix) is extremely viscous and difficult to filter at lower temperatures, where it becomes almost solid, so the filters had to be able to handle temperatures in excess of 90˚C. The company wanted to find a filter capable of handling the extreme temperatures whilst ensuring the filtration efficiency, minimizing the backwash losses and protecting the downstream production lines.
Solution
Given the viscosity and heat demands, it was decided to offer four units of Amiad’s SAF 6000 filters specially manufactured from 316 stainless steel with upgraded seals and bearings. The client confirmed that this solution was the only one which could guarantee much lower backwash losses while still providing the degree of filtration that their production systems demanded. Amiad supplied SAF 6000 high temperature screen filters which were installed in mid-2018 in fully insulated wrappings. Commissioning was undertaken by Amiad engineers.
Results
The changeover to the Amiad filters proved to be a success story. Since 2018, the 4 units of SAF 6000 filters have been commissioned and are in operation. These have been performing as intended without any interruption to filtration operation regardless of the system demands. The Amiad filters provide efficient filtration with very low total sugar syrup loss, proper self-cleaning of the screen, low power consumption and excellent filtration performance.