Kieselguhr-Free Westfalia Separator PROFI® Filtration

PROFI^® is running. Kieselguhr-free filtration is meanwhile more than merely an additional option when a new filter cellar is built or an existing filter cellar is extended, or when an entire brewery is built or extended. In many cases, the kieselguhr-free version is now the first choice, and kieselguhr filtration is only a planning alternative. PROFI^® is he kieselguhr-free filtration which really functions in practice and reliably complies with forecast consumptions of energy and water or performs even better than the specified values. After a short commissioning phase, PROFI^®  actually attains 100 percent of the agreed performance.

More cost-effective than kieselguhr filtration
The advantages offered by PROFI^® have now been recognised by many breweries throughout the entire world. And PROFI^® has many advantages: it is beer filtration in one direction; a microbiological one-way street so to speak. There is no way back, there is no return flow of beer – a great benefit from the microbiological point of view. In the Westfalia Separator PROFI^® process, the unfiltrate is initially pumped into the separator where it is pre-clarified as efficiently as state-of-the-art separator technology permits. The downstream membrane filtration is equipped with hollow fibre modules. In general, PROFI^® is more cost-effective than kieselguhr filtration; the costs are at least equivalent, and in certain cases are much lower depending on the particular application. All this is achieved with effective use of natural resources and no risk to operating personnel because there is no need to handle powdery filter aid.

Final market breakthrough
Westfalia Separator / Pall Food&Beverage achieved the final market breakthrough with PROFI^® filtration two years ago. In 2005, the Danish Carlsberg Group was the first global player to decide to use a PROFI^® system from Westfalia Separator / Pall Food&Beverage. Carlsberg set the ball rolling: since the beginning of 2007, two PROFI^® lines, each with a capacity of 400 hl/h, have been operating in a US brewery; a third line for boosting capacity is in the preparation phase. A further 400 hl/h installation in a Japanese brewery will ensure kieselguhr-free operation by the end of 2007. Because of the satisfaction with the installation in Fredericia, Carlsberg placed an additional order for a PROFI^® line for a subsidiary brewery in Finland. With its new greenfield brewery, a Romanian group has also consistently focused on kieselguhr freedom with a 300 hl/h installation; in Australia, two breweries of one group are each being equipped with two 300 hl/h installations, in other words a total installation of 1200 hl/h.

If there is genuine interest, one of two available 20 hl/h demonstration installations can individually calculate the filtration characteristics, filter service lives and consumption data before submitting a budget proposal