New CO2 recovery plant at Harboes Brewery
For more than 125 years, Harboes Brewery has been situated in a fantastic location directly on the coast of Denmark, in the sunny city of Skælskør with a view over the Skælskør Fjord. However, not only the location is impressing, the brewery also has a very interesting history. In 2008, on the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II, the brewery was appointed “Purveyor to the Royal Danish Court”. Despite its long history and tradition, Harboes Brewery is very innovative.
In-house design, engineering and assembly of components
For more than 125 years, Harboes Brewery has been situated in a fantastic location directly on the coast of Denmark, in the sunny city of Skælskør with a view over the Skælskør Fjord. However, not only the location is impressing, the brewery also has a very interesting history. In 2008, on the birthday of Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II, the brewery was appointed “Purveyor to the Royal Danish Court”. Despite its long history and tradition, Harboes Brewery is very innovative.
Continuous quality improvement and development of new products also requires constant modernization and extension of the technical equipment. Another step in this direction was the investment in a modern and flexible CO2 recovery plant. In view of the product mix (beer, malt extract, soft drinks), the plant design requirements were very high.
GEA Brewery Systems provided a highly flexible system for CO2 recovery that meets the highest requirements regarding energy efficiency and carbon dioxide purity. The complete engineering and the assembly of the plant was done in the production department of GEA in Kitzingen.
Plant with rotary scrubber to remove sugar aerosols from raw gas
Depending on the fermentation method, the CO2 gas can contain so-called sugar aerosols, which can quickly accumulate as crystalline deposits on the valves of the CO2 compressor and cause serious damage. As a result, regular and extensive maintenance of the CO2 compressor is required to prevent such damage. Thanks to its special design, the rotary scrubber removes these aerosols and the maintenance intervals of the CO2 compressor are extended considerably. Thus, the brewery can benefit from significantly lower maintenance costs.
Frequency-controlled capacity adjustment of CO2 compressor for increased energy efficiency
In times of rising energy costs, energy optimization is becoming increasingly important. Therefore, a frequency-controlled CO2 compressor was installed at Harboes Brewery. Thus, longer compressor operating times in the partial load range can be achieved. In the partial load range, the frequency converter allows a reduction in power consumption by up to 20 % compared to a slide control. This leads to significantly reduced energy consumption and increased energy efficiency.
Optimized oxygen reduction by means of self-developed stripper/reboiler combination
Reduction of the oxygen content in the finished beer is very important for long flavor stability. This makes the residual oxygen content of the carbon dioxide used for carbonation a key factor. An important advance was the development of a stripper/reboiler system that considerably reduces the oxygen content in the recovered carbon dioxide. With this technology, carbon dioxide with a purity of more than 99.997 % and thus a guaranteed oxygen content of < 5 ppm is obtained with an input purity of only 95 %.
Now, the people at Harboes Brewery can enjoy the beautiful location even more, knowing that they have made a major contribution to the conservation of resources.
Aerial view of Harboes Brewery, Skælskør
