Product Heaters & Coolers for Personal and Pet Care

Product heaters and coolers are essential equipment in the personal and pet care industries, where precise temperature control is crucial for product quality and safety.

These industries rely on various heating and cooling processes throughout the manufacturing process, including mixing, blending, emulsifying, and filling. Product heaters and coolers play a vital role in achieving the desired temperature and consistency of personal and pet care products such as lotions, creams, shampoos, conditioners, and pet foods.

Processing facilities achieve uniform product blending largely due to consistent and accurate product temperature throughout blending operations. Enerquip shell and tube exchangers offer efficient heat transfer with both large and small batch products, providing consistency in product heating and cooling.

The technology ensures that products are safe, effective, and meet the high standards of these industries. With their ability to heat or cool products quickly and accurately, product heaters and coolers are an essential component of the personal and pet care manufacturing process.

Common applications for fluids and vapors in the personal and pet care industries: 

CIP (Clean-in-place): Shell and tube heat exchangers are often used in CIP systems for heating up cleaning solution that runs through process equipment and piping.

Product heating and cooling: Product is typically ran through the tube side of the exchanger, with utility fluids in the shell.

Evaporation: Used to boil off certain fractions of slurry, or to thicken product by removing some of the water through evaporation. Hot steam or thermal oil is used in the shell to boil the product in the tubes.

Condensing: Used to convert vapors into a liquid so it can be safely recovered and possibly re-used. Typically, this is done by running the hot vapors through the tubes, with a cooling fluid in the shell.

Pasteurization: Used to quickly heat up product and hold it at a high enough temperature to kill harmful bugs and prolong product shelf life.

Trim cooling: Process equipment such as pumps and valves can add unintentional heat to the product. Trim coolers counteract this by cooling the product.

Waste heat recovery: Heat exchangers and economizers can be used to recycle wasted heat into other areas of the process or plant.

 

Advantages of Shell and Tube for Product Heating and Cooling

Shell and tube heat exchangers have several advantages over other types of heat exchangers for product heating and cooling in the sanitary industries, including:

Surface Finish: They are designed with stainless steel surfaces that are polished to low Ra finishes, which makes the surfaces resistant to product build-up and easier to clean.

Viscosity: Shell and tubes can process products that are more viscous than many other types of exchangers.

Visibility: They allow easier visual verification that surfaces are cleaned than a spiral exchanger or plate and frame exchanger, since surfaces can be viewed either through a sightglasss or with the use of a borescope.

Higher Operating Temperatures: Shell and tube exchangers can operate safely at much higher (and lower) temperatures than other designs and can be designed to work under vacuum or high-pressure conditions.

Variety of Configurations: Shell and tube heat exchangers can be designed in a variety of configurations, such as single pass or multi-pass straight tube units, or multi-pass U-tube units.

Variety of Installation: They can be designed to operate horizontally, inclined, or vertically depending on the space available for installation.

Customization: There are many options available for surface finishes, mounting supports, insulation jackets and process and utility connection types.

Personal Care Industry

Pure water heating and cooling is vital to maintaining the quality and purity of personal care products. Essential for the safe and effective operation of the manufacturing plant, our experts can ensure your company has the right shell and tube exchangers for sanitary pure water.

In the personal care industry, pure water is used for the preparation of products typically to be used topically or by ingestion, and for the cleaning of those product-contact components. Because water is prone to endotoxins and microorganisms, equipment and procedures used to create and store pure water must be designed and fabricated to minimize contamination. The most common preparation techniques of pure water is distillation and reverse osmosis.

Distillation: In the distillation process, water goes to a still where it is heated until it is a vapor, stripping it of its heavier ions, particles, and endotoxins. That vapor is then passed through a series of tubes and recondensed back into its liquid form, becoming pure water. Enerquip’s shell and tube heat exchangers can also be used to create clean steam, which can then be condensed and treated as pure water.

Reverse Osmosis: In the reverse osmosis process, pretreated water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane. The pores in the membrane filter dissolved ions, salts, and organic compounds. Because the membranes can foul easily, it is important to ensure proper pressure and flow rates across membranes.

Once pure water is made, it is important that it is either used immediately or stored properly. Proper storing of pure water includes keeping it in motion and at high temperatures of around 90 degrees. Shell and tube heat exchangers play a crucial role in maintaining even temperature of pure water for storing and keeping it in motion. They are also used for heating the water up to 185F during recirculation to prevent any contaminants like micro-organisms from forming, and then to cool the water back down to the optimum temperature for storage.

Our highly polished, stainless steel exchangers help to ensure there is no contamination in the system, preventing build up and cross-contamination, and allowing for proper draining.

Pet Care Industry

Shell and tube heat exchangers are commonly used in the pet care manufacturing industry for various processes such as heating, cooling, and condensing. Here are a few examples of how they are used:

Heating/Cooling: In the production of pet foods, heat exchangers are used to heat or cool ingredients to the required temperature. For example, in the production of wet pet food, heat exchangers are used to heat the mixture of meat, vegetables, and grains before it is canned. On the other hand, in the production of dry pet food, heat exchangers are used to cool the mixture before it is extruded and formed into kibble.

Condensing: During the production of pet care products, certain solvents and other volatile substances need to be removed through a process called condensation. Heat exchangers are used to cool the mixture to the point where the vapors condense and can be collected.

In all of these processes, shell and tube heat exchangers are preferred due to their efficiency and ability to handle high pressures and temperatures. They are also easy to clean and maintain, which is important in the pet care industry where hygiene and safety are of utmost importance.

Have questions about a thermal solution for your processing application? Contact us or request a quote today.

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