Glenmorangie turns to vortex recovery at new plant
11 Jan 2011
Livingston, UK – The recently opened Glenmorangie bottling plant in Livingston, Scotland, is employing a vortex-based product-recovery installation from Cheshire-based Aeolus Technologies.
Project engineers from Allen Associates who designed the new whisky plant in conjunction with Glenmorangie incorporated the Whirlwind System into the pipe clearing process.
The technology can potentially recover significantly higher levels of product than methods used at other bottling sites when the pipelines need to be cleared following delivery through to bottling.
“Although the Whirlwind System can be retrofitted, building of the new plant enabled us to design the system in from the start,” said Glenmorangie lead project engineer Julia Blair.
“We chose this technology as it not only minimises product waste but also means there is no mixing of products in our pipework, both of which are key with such a high quality, high value product.:
The new unit at the Glenmorangie site is making use of just the clearing phase of the technology, which first generates and then controls a vortex airflow within the pipework.
The full suite of options from the technology is a complete recovery, clean and dry cycle, Aeolus points out.
“When discussing the technology with potential customers, whilst they are interested in the benefits the full cycle can deliver, they are often focussed on particular aspects depending on corporate objectives,” said Peter Chavasse, business development manager for Aeolus.
This may be product recovery, water reduction, waste reduction or energy reduction, according to Chavasse, who claims that the Whirlwind System can deliver against all of these criteria.
The vortex airflow technology behind the Whirlwind System is said to deliver product recovery rates of over 95% through the clearing phase and water savings of 85-90% in the cleaning phase – so reducing waste and effluent.
