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GEA-Farm - Centrifuge Water Saving Unit
Compact unit to limit the water consumption for cooling purposes of centrifuges. As one of our most resource-efficient solutions, our GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit carries the Add Better label. The GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit enables a transfer of emitted heat from the operating separator via recirculating cooling water to glycol or iced water. This reduces the cooling water consumption by 99.9% compared to conventional cooling of the separator, resulting in savings of more than 1.3 million liters of water per year and per separator. The Add Better label relates to the serial product GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit, released in September 2022. The comparison refers to the conventional supply of cooling water to motor, hood and catcher during the operation of a separator.
Small effort, big savings
Depending on the individual machine setup, the GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit enables our customers to save around 1 million liters of fresh water per year by reusing and recycling resources that are already part of the production process.
Sample calculation*:
- Cooling water throughput: 3,600 liters per day
- Savings potential: 99.9 percent compared with the previous generation, totaling around 1.3 million liters of water per year
*coolant requirement for hood, solids catcher and drive: 180 l/h – daily operating time 20 h/day – annual production days 350 days/a
Due to the tiny size* and low installation efforts, neither large investment costs nor extensive conversions or shutdowns are necessary. Installation takes no more than half a day, and the unit requires little maintenance during operation. The fast payback time also makes the unit a cost-effective alternative to larger wastewater treatment plants.
*new machine version: 380 (w) x 380 (l) x 485 (h) mm / retrofit version: 380 (w) x 580 (l) x 495 (h) mm
The Water Saving Unit consists of controls, a circulation pump, a heat exchanger, valves and internal piping. It supplies cooling water to the separator’s drive, hood and solids catcher with a flow of 13 l/min and a customizable temperature between 10 °C and 30 °C. Required on your side: A continuous minimum supply of iced water or glycol mixture of 15 l/min and a minimum pressure of 2 bar.
The Water Saving Unit operates with two separate circuits for the engine and hood + catcher: While motor cooling is required continuously in separator operation, hood/catcher cooling is only switched on automatically when it is also required for process reasons. The result: a significantly optimized energy consumption compared to the standard production process, in which energy is required for pumping, cleaning, and preparing and disposing of the cooling water needed for safe operation of the centrifuge.
The GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit is compatible with all GEA separator types:
- Gear drive separators
- Belt drive separators
- Direct drive separators
- Integrated direct drive separators
The unit is available both for new machines and as a retrofit for existing installations.
CIP optimization for centrifuges with integrated direct drive
- The GEA Centrifuge Water Saving Unit separates the water circuits for drive and hood/ catcher, thus enabling deactivation of hood/ catcher cooling during hot CIP
- CIP optimization further reduces the energy footprint of the centrifuge
- CIP optimization is always included in the setup of air-cooled motors (gear drive, belt drive, direct drive)
- CIP optimization is possible for the setup of water-cooled motors (integrated direct drive) through signal exchange with the main machine’s PLC
Cloud connectivity via IoT gateway
- Connection of centrifuge and Water Saving Unit to the GEA Cloud Service
- Live visualization of process data from local PLC
- Connection to cloud through Siemens Mindconnect IoT