Catalent Pharma Solutions in Swindon, UK is reaping the rewards of swapping its old shell-and-tube calorifiers with compact Spirax Sarco EasiHeat steam-to-hot water systems. Spirax Sarco calculates that Catalent could save £6,500 a year in energy costs by replacing a single 540kW calorifier with an EasiHeat.
Catalent has been gradually replacing its old heat exchangers over the past five years, and now has nine EasiHeat systems in place. According to engineering manager Arthur Burnett the biggest saving is in downtime and maintenance costs.
"The main thing is that we now have no summer shutdown, when it used to take two weeks," he said. "Also, we can look after the heat exchangers with one utility engineer instead of four, so it frees up time for our maintenance team."
Shell-and-tube heat exchangers are pressure vessels and must therefore be dismantled annually for an insurance inspection whereas EasiHeat systems rely on stainless steel plate heat exchangers (PHEs), which eliminate the need for stripping down. PHEs are also compact and energy efficient, the company says.
Catalent's Swindon factory encapsulates various products in soft gel capsules. Between them, the new heat exchangers serve two hot water systems, one at 80°C for process water and air conditioning, and the other at 60°C for hand washing.
"The old calorifiers were over 20 years old," said Burnett. "They were not very efficient, slow to heat up and caused a bottleneck in the process."
By contrast, the EasiHeat units are more than equal to the task. "We used to run three large calorifiers for one application and replaced them with two compact EasiHeat systems. Although we always have one on permanent stand-by, for safety and maintenance precautions, we've never had to use it for an application because they're so efficient," said Burnett.