New membrane to revolutionise beer filtration A new development in filtration technology, pioneered by Heineken, promises to benefit sustainability and reduce costs. World of Heineken 39 - winter 2008/2009 Membrane filters have already been installed in three Heineken breweries, namely Madrid (Spain), Warka (Poland) including a recently installed extension, and Craiova (Romania). "The fact is that you can't just keep an innovation like this to yourself, so our technology has also shown its impact on the industry at large by being been installed in 15 non-Heineken breweries." He points out that as Heineken and Norit jointly own a number of crucial patents in the technology, Heineken will also benefit if competitors use it. Lex.Ronteltap@Heineken.com Close cooperation between Heineken and the Dutch-based filtration and purification specialists Norit NV has produced a new filtration system using a micropore membrane filtration system that is set to become the industry standard in the years to come. Heineken's Manager Research Innovation at Group Supply Chain, Lex Ronteltap says "unlike, for example, in a coffee filter, where the pores are easily clogged, we use what we call cross-flow filtration by keeping liquid flowing over the membrane at high speed," Lex explains. "In this way, you can keep the pores open allowing for a more efficient filtration process with the yeasts and proteins staying behind, and a clear beer filtering through." Highlighting the benefit of the new technology, Lex says that in a traditional filter, you are left with a mix of the proteins and yeast you have removed from the beer. An added bonus is that the cost of the membranes is relatively low and they can be re-used. "One of the development challenges was to clean and regenerate the membranes after a filter run. The breakthrough in the research with Norit was to find a cleaning agent that could effectively clean the membrane. In spite of the use of cross-flow, over time (15-30 hours), there is still inevitably some fouling that occurs from deposits building up on the membrane," says Lex. "Once a detergent was found that could regenerate the membrane to its original state, we could start producing the membranes on industrial scale, and start the roll-out." 49

Jaarverslagen en Personeelsbladen Heineken

World of Heineken | 2008 | | pagina 51