The Paper Industry

Due to the paper industry’s very energy intensive nature, cost management is essential.  Huge cost savings can be realised by installing FRIGOTHERM’s range of highly efficient heat recovery plate and frame heat exchangers.

Heat recovery

​Due to the paper industry’s very energy intensive nature, cost management is essential.  Huge cost savings can be realised by installing FRIGOTHERM’s range of highly efficient heat recovery plate and frame heat exchangers. Rapid amortisation of our equipment is guaranteed due to the high thermal competencies, thus resulting in cost effective and compact sizing of our range of plate and frame heat exchangers. ​Spent waste products, such as alcohols used in the production process of paper, are combusted rather than discarded and the resulting caloric heat output is then transferred back via heat exchangers to the primary product stream. Our range of plate and frame and shell and tube heat exchangers is ideally suited to this purpose. While corrosion resistant materials ensure long lifespan, we commonly also supply in titanium, duplex and haste alloys. High performance elastomers, backed by DuPont, ensure a tight seal between the plates, thus realising many years of reliable service, continuously withstanding operating temperatures of up 185 deg C and pressures of up to 25 bars. Of course, with shell and tube and plate and frame heat exchangers these boundaries can by far be exceeded.

Heating and cooling

White contrast on a sheet of paper or white paint decorating walls is achieved through bleaching. The most common bleach, known as sodium hypo chloride, is used to transform the dark cellulose fibres into brilliant white.  Brilliant white therefore results from the chemical reaction between chlorine and sodium hydroxide or caustic soda. This reaction is, however, exothermic, giving off heat during the reaction. Staying cool when things heat up is imperative. FRIGOTHERM plate and frame heat exchangers are used to maintain equilibrium, ensuring the process is safe and possible right from the start. High heat transfer coefficients in our plate and frame and shell and tube heat exchangers also ensure a compact equipment footprint. ​Furthermore, hot water is needed during various stages of paper production, such as pre-soaking the raw lumber. Named after the inventor Henry Fourdrinier, the Fourdrinier process is still used today to produce large scale, continuous rolls of paper.  Essentially, rows of heated drums dry out the wet pulp. In some cases the rolls are heated directly with steam; however, if ignored, fouling, in the form of calcium carbonate, can become a major problem. If treated hot water is used instead, the fouling will be limited to the plate and frame heat exchanger which condenses the steam and is easier to maintain.    Sometimes long downtimes due to equipment failure or maintenance are unacceptable; in that case FRIGOTHERM advises customers to use a system of redundancies. In other instances, where the process stream contains solids or fibres, our FPFS series plate and frame heat exchangers combine narrow flow gaps with wide gaps, resulting in excellent performance in viscous and solids-laden flow streams.