Cleaning plate heat exchangers in the sugar industry

Your recipe for maintaining high thermal efciency

Even in a well-controlled, optimized sugar process, to maintain their high heat transfer efciency, your Alfa Laval plate heat exchangers (PHEs) need regular cleaning to remove fouling and scaling. The good news is that the job can be done easily by inline chemical cleaning. Compared to cleaning shell-and-tubes, it requires very little manpower and, due to the low hold-up volumes of the PHEs, much less chemicals.

Its a piece of cake!

How often you clean your PHEs depends on your sugar process, and which positions the PHEs occupy in the process. Here are some typical cleaning procedures if you need more detailed information, our specialists can provide a recipe for the optimum PHE cleaning procedure for your process: Backushing For brous media, regular backushing is recommended for a few minutes every couple of hours. Removing organic substances Circulate hot water at 85C for an hour, circulate alkaline cleaning agent with a pH of 12 or higher, at 85-100C for 4 hours, then rinse with hot water for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the pH. Removing scale Circulate hot water at 85C for an hour, circulate acid cleaning agent with a pH of 3.5 or lower at 70C for 4 hours, then rinse with hot water for 30 minutes. Keep an eye on the pH.

If its not broken dont x it! Its not normally necessary to open your PHEs in fact they should not be opened unless there is a clear reason to do so. If the pressure drop and performance are back to normal after the cleaning process, there is no reason to routinely open the PHE. Precautions worth taking If a PHE is about to be taken out of service, round off the cleaning cycle with a short alkaline cycle, followed by rinsing with water. This ensures that no acid is left in the unit that could cause corrosion during standstill. Acid cleaning agents must be weak solutions, such as, for example, phosphoric acid and sulphamic acid. Under no circumstances should hydrochloric acid be used.

Alfa Laval CIP

Optimum cleaning efciency is ensured by using a dedicated Alfa Laval CIP (Cleaning-in-Place) system. Our CIP chemical cleaning agents are efcient, non-corrosive to plates and gaskets and have minimum environmental impact. They contain additives that make the cleaning faster and more efcient at a lower temperature and with a lower concentration of chemicals.

Always at your service

Field service Although it seldom happens, a plate heat exchanger may need repair. Alfa Lavals team of eld engineers can be summoned at short notice and are fully equipped to make the repair on site quickly and safely. Performance agreements Alfa Laval offers performance agreements on four different service levels ranging from simple ad hoc repairs to performance optimization at high efficiency levels. This structure helps make it easy and convenient to maintain high heat exchanger uptime. The service levels are optimized for different applications and the demands they place on cleaning and preventive maintenance. Service centers Alfa Lavals 50+ service centres worldwide are on stand-by in the unlikely event of more serious damage to a plate heat exchanger. The experience and specialized tools of the service centre will help get the damaged unit back in operation in the shortest time possible. The centre, often working closely with the eld engineers, can help organize the dismantling, packaging and transportation of the heat exchanger.

Alfa Laval CIP chemicals and additives

AlfaCaus: An alkaline cleaning agent containing tensides and a complex builder. AlfaPhos: An acidic cleaning agent containing tensides, a complex builder and an inhibitor. AlfaAdd: A tensides additive. Tensides enhance the efciency of the cleaning. The complex builder prohibits the precipitation of salts. The inhibitor protects the stainless steel from corrosion by repassivating the steel surface.

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How to contact Alfa Laval Up-to-date Alfa Laval contact details for all countries are always available on our website at www.alfalaval.com

Alfa Laval reserves the right to change specications without prior notication.