Sweetener production

What is sweetener production? 

Sweeteners are produced by further processing of the starch after it is has been extracted from a wide range of agricultural feedstocks, including wheat, potatoes and cassava. The product that emerges from the extraction process is known as native starch and when it is processed and hydrolyzed it breaks down into modified starch and different types of sweeteners such as glucose, fructose, maltose, dextrose and maltodextrin.  

Alfa Laval offers world-leading technology across this whole process and specific equipment such as centrifuges and evaporators to deliver high-quality sweeteners for industrial fermentation processes. With sweeteners often now being considered as alternatives to natural sugar, this is a growing industry, and Alfa Laval supplies equipment and systems that focus on: 

• Evaporation and condensation  

• Screening and filtration  

• Centrifugal separation  

• Membrane filtration  

• Heating and cooling. 

Alfa Laval’s broad range of plate evaporators, including the compact AlfaCond and AlfaVap units, provide the most cost-effective solution for sweetener concentration and later in the process, Alfa Laval rotary drum filters are used for purifying the starch-based sweeteners. 

Our customers in the sweeteners industry also face increasingly stringent environmental and quality standards and Alfa Laval is uniquely positioned to address these needs using the entire spectrum of cross-flow filtration technologies, from microfiltration, ultrafiltration and nanofiltration to reverse osmosis. 

Compact systems 

Alfa Laval AlfaVap evaporation systems are based on a plate-and-frame design specially configured for evaporators. Thanks to the compact design and exceptional thermal efficiency of AlfaVap units, the complete installation is much smaller than corresponding systems based on shell-and-tube technology. You can also easily expand capacity by adding more plates to the plate evaporators. 

The compact size and low height of AlfaVap evaporation systems means they require less pumping power to maintain the flow of the medium, thus reducing energy costs. 

Energy savings 

The most effective way to reduce steam consumption in evaporation systems is to increase the number of effects. Each effect saves steam and cuts energy cost. Because of the compact design, an Alfa Laval system can contain more effects in a given space than any traditional falling film system. 

The small size also means existing falling film systems can be retrofitted with an extra Alfa Laval effect, resulting in up to 33% lower steam consumption. 

The high thermal efficiency of the plate evaporators makes it possible to use heat from different sources, such as mechanical and thermal compression, as well as waste vapours from dryers. 

Less maintenance and more uptime 

The highly turbulent flow in a plate evaporator makes it less susceptible to fouling. The evaporation temperature in an Alfa Laval evaporator is also lower than most other designs, which reduces the risk of fouling. The result is a system with significantly less fouling, lower maintenance costs and more uptime. 

All surfaces are easily accessible for maintenance and can be cleaned onsite within the physical footprint of the unit. 

High product quality 

The low temperature combined with short residence time in the plate evaporator (due to a low hold-up volume) secures a high quality end product with minimum colouration. 

The low hold-up volume also ensures fast, smooth start-ups with easy control. 

Ideal solution for high viscosity fluids 

An Alfa Laval evaporation system can easily handle fluids well beyond 300 cP, which is often the limit for falling film evaporators. The higher the viscosity, the higher the relative efficiency of the Alfa Laval system compared to other technologies.