Van Beek, Drunen, the Netherlands – supported by a €30,000 subsidy from the Stichting Metal Valley Foundation – has developed a new type of screw heat exchanger for liquids. 

 

Under the trade name Celsius, the company already has wide experience with the construction of screw heat exchangers. They are used for cooling, heating and drying powders and granulates. The company is now investigating whether a screw can also play an important part in a heating process with liquids.  The prototype is a vertically installed screw where the liquid is sprayed in from the bottom at around 10 bar. A shaft-less screw rotates against the pressure to slow down the liquid. Fitted around the screw is a twin-walled tube through which heated oil or water flows. In this way the temperature in the screw can be regulated.

 

The operator adjusts how much resistance is provided by the screw and controls how long the liquid remains in the screw. In this way it can be very accurately determined how warm the product is when it emerges. “We are the first to experiment with this technique in this way”, said Eric De Jong, Van Beek’s manager of operations. He expects that there will be a big demand for this unique screw heat exchanger not only in the food industry, but also in recycling (for example for sludge processing) and the chemical industry. Van Beek has developed this heat exchanger in association with Dordrecht-based Kapp Nederland BV, a trading and engineering firm specialising in industrial heat exchangers in the process industry. www.van-beek.nl 

 

 

The prototype screw heat exchanger has proved successful for processing frozen fruit to produce smoothies; many other applications are anticipated