Plenty of benefits

A new chapter in a successful collaboration: because of the COSUMAR Group’s positive experiences with equipment from BMA, such as our vertical continuous pans (VKT) or our falling-film evaporators (FFE), the SUTA sugar factory continues to put its trust in us.

SUTA had placed an order with BMA for four FFE with a total heating surface of 16,000 m2 and one 5-chamber VKT for A product. The first 5,000 m2 evaporator was shipped and successfully in operation throughout the 2019 campaign. Now BMA has installed the other three FFE and the VKT, and this year, SUTA has updated its order to include an additional direct-contact condenser.

Energy efficiency is just one of the VKT’s many benefits. Others are its small footprint, or the fact that it can be installed outside existing buildings. Automatic operation of the VKT was another major bonus for COSUMAR.

Shipment to the factory and assembly of the equipment went exactly to plan, finishing at the right time for SUTA, although a number of difficulties arose during assembly of the VKT. Thankfully we were able to overcome these to the customer’s satisfaction. 

BMA also supplied the shop drawings and the parts lists for the stair tower, which was customised to fit the VKT. Thanks to the early delivery, SUTA were able to install the pipes, pumps and all the instrumentation well before the start of the campaign, scheduled for early April 2020. The pressure tests were completed successfully. 

This large order formed part of the sugar factory upgrade and capacity increase from 8,000 to 12,000 tbd. Reducing energy consumption is a major goal for sugar factory operators. Here it was made possible by running the new evaporators together with the existing ones. 

The upgraded evaporator station will have five effects. And these are the technical details for the four evaporators from BMA: 5,000 m2 are installed as 4th effect, 4,000 m2 as effect 3A, 4,000 m2 as effect 3B and 3000 m2 as 5th effect. Now that they are installed, 4th vapour can be used to heat the VKT for A product, resulting in considerable energy savings. 

The VKT  has a diameter of 5,600 mm, a height of 38,000 mm and a heating surface of 3,180 m2. All parts that come into contact with the massecuite are fully made from stainless steel.  

BMA later received an additional order for supply of a direct-contact condenser. This operates according to the parallel flow/counter flow principle: large parts of the vapour coming from the VKT are condensed in a parallel flow with cooling water. The uncondensed vapour together with the non-condensable gases passes into the counter flow section of the condenser (post-condensation), largely preventing vapour and non-condensable gases reaching the vacuum pumps.

A BMA team was supposed to be on site for the commissioning of all this equipment – but because of the global Covid-19 pandemic, they were unable to travel to Morocco. With assistance from the BMA team via e-mail, phone and video conferencing, SUTA successfully managed to commission the new equipment.