Distillers could reduce unnecessary energy, water and chemical use by identifying and analysing process deposits to optimise cleaning.
Soil residues left on process equipment, such as heat exchangers, still heating plates, elements, condensers and evaporators, can restrict flow and reduce heat transfer, increasing energy demand to achieve the desired result, according to Kersia UK.
Meanwhile, they said, deposits in areas such as fermenters and washbacks can also increase the risk of microbial contamination.
Deposits can build gradually and may go unnoticed until they become embedded and harder to remove. At this point, producers may respond by increasing cleaning frequency, chemical concentration or cycle length – adding further costs and production downtime without addressing the cause.
Therefore, producers with persistent build-up are advised to first identify the deposit using laboratory analysis, so cleaning chemistry and methods can be targeted accordingly.
André Arellano, technical sales consultant at Kersia UK, explained: “Build-up on heat-transfer surfaces can act as insulation, reducing the rate at which heat moves through equipment.
“This means more energy may be needed for heating or cooling to achieve the same result, while restrictions caused by deposits can also increase the energy required to pump product through the process,” he said.
With energy a significant operating cost for distillers, even small inefficiencies repeated across production and cleaning cycles can add up over time.
“And when the Scotch whisky industry alone consumes around 3.7 TWh of energy each year, equivalent to 10% of Scotland’s total energy use, the last thing we want to be doing is using energy unnecessarily,” Arellano added.
He therefore warns that simply using more chemicals, water or cleaning time is not necessarily the answer.
“If you understand what’s causing the build-up, it’s possible to target the cleaning approach to the particular soil and equipment,” he said.
“Cleaning isn’t just about hygiene; it also has a direct bearing on how efficiently the entire process runs. The aim is to achieve an effective clean without using more chemical, water, energy or production time than necessary.”
