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