United Kingdom: Savings brought by supersonic brewing

UK brewing scientists have adapted Pursuit Dynamics’ award-winning processing technology for the drinks industry with early results revealing substantial cost and energy savings for producers, Beverage Daily posted on September 23.

“The PDX Sonic technology enabled brewers to combine heating, mixing and pumping as well as save cleaning time and energy by switching to continuous processing,” Professor Richard Sharpe, technical director of Brewing Research International, said.

Sharpe, who held a talk on PDX in brewing at the recent Drinktec expo, told Beverage Daily that the technology had already attracted one of the world's ten biggest brewers. “They think there may be savings for £1.5m in energy bills alone.” He added that British brewer Greene King had reported major savings on heating costs after installing a PDX system earlier this year.

Kester Scrope, commercial director at PDX-owner Pursuit Dynamics, claimed recently that the system could make brewers' processing up to 15 times faster.

Such savings may be especially welcome for the margins of brewers dealing with sluggish beer markets in Western Europe and the US, while the general climate of rising energy, PET and raw materials costs is something all food and drink makers are continuing to battle against.

The small size of the PDX Sonic system, ranging from 25mm to 63mm in diameter, should also save firms extra space – slotting nicely into trends for ever more compact and efficient processing.

Pursuit Dynamics, creator of PDX Sonic for food and soft drink processing, said its use of shockwave technology meant that the system “pumps, mixes, entrains and heats all in one easy-to-clean process that has no moving parts”.

Steam travelling around three times faster than the speed of sound is injected into the process flow, causing a supersonic shockwave that in turn causes condensation and enables processors to control mixing within a special supersonic zone.

The firm's new batch of PDX processors recently won the 2005 Technological Development of the Year at this year's Food Processing Awards in London. Prof Sharpe said the BRI team had only been adapting the PDX technology for a year, but was now looking at how to incorporate it into other processes, such as mash conversion.

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