Turning old into new: pasteuriser upgrade cuts water consumption

How to benefit from the latest technical advances? Upgrades are one option – and the Krones’ Lifecycle Service team (LCS) proves that point every time they retrofit a relatively old machine with suitable upgrade packages. And that pays dividends for the line owners, in the form of improved levels of efficiency and product quality, for example, as well as energy and water savings. What’s even more, the eco-footprint is many times smaller than that of a new machine. “When we update a pasteuriser’s process technology, its sturdy stainless-steel housing, conveyor belts and spray systems are retained. That saves plenty of new steel and the associated CO₂ emissions for production and transport,” says Jan Golm from the LCS team, adding: “Ten or twenty years ago, machine housings were made of steel sheets with a thickness of over one millimetre, an ample amount by today’s standards. These housings were made to last, and it would certainly be a waste to replace them.”

By the way, this very LCS team has just successfully completed an elaborate, large-scale upgrade project, comprising extensive retrofit jobs on no less than four pasteurisers for the Turkish brewery Anadolu Efes. “We more or less completely disassembled the machines, removing nearly every part. And when customers see their machines gutted like that, they definitely need to have a fair bit of confidence in our ability to get them up and running again,” says Jan Golm. He goes on to emphasise: “We’re really grateful to Anadolu Efes for their high degree of trust in our company and the excellent teamwork.” Orkun Öztekin, the head of Krones Sales and Marketing in Türkiye, played a significant role in this context. To quote Jan Golm: “At start of his career, Orkun used to be an electrical maintenance engineer at an Anadolu Efes Brewery and has, therefore, achieved to perfectly translate all our technical questions and concerns into both languages and cultures. That was an enormous boon to our work, making it a whole lot easier.”

“When we update a pasteuriser’s process technology, its sturdy stainless-steel housing, conveyor belts and spray systems are retained.” Jan GolmKrones Lifecycle Service

Major focus on water

Anadolu Efes decided to upgrade its pasteurisers in order to reduce the amounts of water used in production. Sustainability is firmly anchored in the Turkish beverage company’s business strategy, which includes targets for greenhouse gas emissions (net zero by 2030) and waste generated (zero-waste certification for its malt and beer business by 2030).

A stable supply of water plays a vital role here since a brewery’s business depends on it not only directly (water is a beer’s major ingredient), but also indirectly since barley and hops also need water to grow. That is why Anadolu Efes records the water-stress risk, meaning the balance between the quantity of water demanded and actually available in the region concerned, for all its beer, malt and hops production sites across the globe. The result for Türkiye is a high water-stress risk for five of its six facilities. In 2023 alone, Anadolu Efes therefore invested a total of 10.9 million Turkish lira (TRL, around 287,000 euros) into six projects primarily designed to save energy and reuse water. One of the aims is to save 24,126.5 cubic metres of water per year. Anadolu Efes is also following up on efficiency projects totalling nearly 94 million TRL, which they started last year and are continuing this year. For Anadolu Efes operations in Türkiye, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Georgia, they aim to reduce water consumption per beer production by 10% in breweries by 2025 compared to the 2020 baseline. To achieve this, Anadolu Efes pulled plenty of different levers in its production. 

Buffer tanks and a central heat exchanger

Anadolu Efes identified the pasteuriser as one area with considerable potential for water savings and has taken Krones on board to tackle it. “Of course, it would be possible to simply replace the older systems with new ones. But in terms of sustainability, an upgrade is clearly the better solution,” says Jan Golm.

You have to look at how a pasteuriser works in order to understand how such an upgrade cuts consumption. The filled product is cold when it enters the machine. As it passes through the ten sections of the pasteuriser, it is showered with water at different temperatures. In the first sections, the product is heated up in stages. Then it is kept at a predefined temperature for a certain time in order to pasteurise it. And finally, it is gradually cooled back down. The temperature of the process water rises or falls, depending on the section concerned. In normal operation, the process water is passed back and forth between specific section pairs – each pair consisting of one section at the front of the pasteuriser and its counterpart at the rear. As long as everything is running smoothly, the pasteuriser does not need any additional energy nor any fresh water from outside.

The situation is different entirely if there is a line stoppage and the product is stuck inside the machine for a time. To prevent over-pasteurisation, the product must be rapidly cooled with fresh water, which thereafter is in most cases flushed right down the drain. And when the line is started up again, there will of course be no hot water from the discharge sections for warming up the product entering the machine. Hence, the pasteuriser will need additional thermal energy. So a pasteuriser’s energy and water consumption depends heavily on the number of line stoppages to be expected.   

Of course, it would be possible to simply replace the older systems with new ones. But in terms of sustainability, an upgrade is clearly the better solution. Jan GolmKrones Lifecycle Service

A central supply of thermal and cooling energy permits efficient resource management even in such conditions. Instead of having to rapidly heat or cool the several cubic metres of water that are usually passed between the respective section pairs and using lots of fresh water or thermal energy along the way, a faster and more efficient method is to keep hot or cold process water available in central buffer tanks. Water at exactly the right temperature for showering the containers in the section concerned can then be taken from those tanks, subsequently collected and passed back into the tanks.

In order to integrate this concept into Anadolu Efes’ existing pasteurisers, Krones installed two upgrade packages: firstly, the CHESS system, consisting of a central heat exchanger and hot water tank, and secondly, a buffer tank for cold water. Together, these retrofits can reduce water consumption by at least 20 per cent, in some cases by quite a lot more than that. “The hot buffer is always kept at the rated temperature, for instance at 60 degrees Celsius. The water then only needs to be heated slightly more for use, typically to 80 or 85 degrees Celsius. That doesn’t take much time and requires less energy,” emphasises Jan Golm. In a similar approach, the cold buffer can be complemented by a cooling tower, for instance the Krones VapoChill, and permanently cooled. In that case, the pasteuriser can practically do without fresh water entirely.

The upgrade packages are suitable for all tunnel pasteurisers, including third-party machines. The retrofit work is performed in collaboration with the customer’s team. “The engineering and process technology is always supplied by Krones. We discuss who is to provide any additional work or components, like cooling tower or heat exchanger, separately in each case,” explains Jan Golm.

Teamwork in Izmir

The retrofit job at Anadolu Efes covered four pasteurisers in Adana, Ankara and Izmir – one Krones machine and three third-party machines. All upgrade packages comprised the CHESS central heat exchanger supply system, buffer tanks for cold and hot water, plus a cooling tower with heat exchanger. “We had the first talks on this project about ten years ago,” recalls Jan Golm. Then, in 2021, work on the first pasteuriser started in Adana. Krones supplied the pasteuriser technology, Anadolu Efes was responsible for the cooling tower and mechanical parts, plus their installation. This was followed by two pasteurisers in succession in Ankara – here Krones handled all equipment and its installation, apart from the cooling towers. The last upgrade job for the time being was done on the pasteuriser in a Krones glass line in Izmir. “We’d seen just how effectively water consumption had been reduced in the two other breweries and decided that this would be a valuable benefit for us as well,” says Efe Göktepe who is responsible for filling and packaging in Izmir. 

Krones supplied everything for this fourth upgrade project, apart from the heat exchanger for the cooling tower. “That was our biggest intervention in the line so far, and I learned a great deal from it,” recalls Efe Göktepe: “All of the equipment came from Krones, and we laid the internal piping between cooling tower and CHESS. Production stopped for about four weeks. And although the retrofit job was performed in the low season, we were under time pressure, of course. Usually, our lines run 24/7.” Since May 2024, the line has been running smoothly since it was put back in operation in April. “The water volume we’re saving even exceeds our expectations,” says Efe Göktepe, giving us some impressive figures: Daily consumption (24 hours) fell from 250 to 15 cubic metres. That is a reduction of over 90 per cent. And Jan Golm is also pleased that all four pasteurisers are running without a hitch: “We’ve installed machine upgrades for years now but often it’s just either the buffer tanks or CHESS that are retrofitted. Such a large-scale project comprising four pasteurisers in succession, that’s a special project for us as well.” 

The water volume saved by the upgrade has by far exceeded expectations. Daily consumption fell from 250 to 15 cubic metres. That is a reduction of more than 90 per cent. Efe GöktepeHead of Filling and Packaging at the Anadolu Efes brewery in Izmir

And Anadolu Efes isn’t stopping here in its water-saving efforts. “We’ll be tackling the bottle washer next,” says Efe Göktepe. A rinser upgrade is planned here. Orkun Öztekin, who used to be one of Efe’s colleagues at the brewery and now heads Krones Sales and Marketing in Türkiye, adds: “We’re pleased that for this project, too, we can once again count on the excellent support provided by the LCS team at Flensburg.”