FLOTTWEG offers a whale of a time

The company says that in recent

years Antarctic krill has attracted considerable interest as a potential

new source of protein. It says

estimates suggest that the stock in the Southern Ocean may allow yearly catches of 50–100 million tonnes. From the late 1970s, Flottweg says there has been exploratory fishing of krill and there is now some commercial fishing taking place.

RSPL

In addition, it says plankton could be used to provide protein and oil for the feed market as well as for use as a food ingredient for humans. The biomass of the copepod calanus alone has been estimated to be 150-200 million tonnes.

“These raw material resources give a challenge to develop an efficient catch and processing technology to achieve a profitable end result. One key requirement in handling of these raw materials is immediate conservation or processing, as enzymatic activity is extremely fast. The basic process consists of heating the raw material, followed by separation into the different fractions of oil, water and solids (the protein). Instantaneous heating, prior to separation, is important to avoid the formation of free fatty acids. This is achieved in our R. S. Process Loop (RSPL) coagulator, in which the critical temperature zone is passed immediately by the mixing of cold and hot recycled product. The subsequent separation

can be done in various ways, with different kinds of separation equipment, depending if onshore or offshore processing is planned.

Flottweg believes its Tricanter is the ideal equipment for this work arguing that it offers a single machine to separate solids, water and oil phase in one simultaneous separation step.

It adds that the tricanter's unique, variable impeller, allows the operator to optimise the “liquid-liquid separation during full operation speed, achieving clean liquid phases without using a big separator”. The variable drive system of the centrifuge, (FLOTTWEG SIMP-DRIVE®), means the speed of bowl and scroll can be steplessly adjusted to optimise the machine according to infeed composition.

Flottweg says the infeed composition of alginates and krill vary significantly over the different seasons so flexibility in the equipment is a key factor for economic operation of the processing line. The end product comes out as meal and oil or hydrolysates.

Evaporators

For hydrolysate production, evaporators are required, to concentrate the

liquid phase to 40 per cent to 50 per cent solids. Flottweg says its RSPL provides

a special evaporator which can give

a pasty concentrate with up to 80 per cent solids.

The company suggests that there are more products to be had than the present oil and feed, “particularly for more advanced special products such as essential amino acids which are of much higher value”.

Dr. Georg Bruckmayer acquired a motor engineering company in 1932 which diversified into today’s Bavarian-based, Flottweg company. It says it has sold thousands of centrifuges and belt presses worldwide, has an annual turnover of €60 million and 360 employees and exports account for 75 per cent of production.