Developing New Markets in Food Processing

Technological developments giving way to new business ventures is on the rise. Filtration, purification and separation company Parker domnick hunter, part of the Parker Hannifin group, has added a ninth Queen’s Award to its already impressive tally – a sure sign of how effective some of the efforts to develop new business have been. In the words of the firm’s general manager, Derek Turnbull, “our latest success in the Queen’s Awards is perhaps our greatest to date, as it pays testament to the strength of our technical and business development capabilities, while recognising our long-term global export strategy and ongoing commitment to manufacturing in the UK.”

The achievement itself is built on the Maxigas range of separation technologies, developed to provide end users with a cost-effective and compact solution to on-site nitrogen generation, and neatly circumvent the limitations of conventional approaches into the bargain. Offering processing companies the means to generate as much or as little nitrogen as they need, on demand, from compressed air, Maxigas systems avoid the logistic problems inherent in obtaining external gas supplies – and insulate users from their relentlessly rising prices. 

Designed to provide processing companies with high specification, food grade nitrogen at low cost, according to the company, the technology has already found markets throughout the EU, as well as in Russia, the Middle East, North and South America, Turkey, India and Asia in general. With payback typically occurring within two years and up to 90% ongoing savings being possible thereafter, it is not hard to see why.

Maximising efficiency

Behind this success lies a radical and robust control system design, which maximises nitrogen gas output, and reduces compressed air consumption, to enable unparalleled levels of efficiency to be achieved. The basic operating principle behind Maxigas – as well as the company’s Midigas range, which is aimed at the smaller user – is an approach known as pressure swing adsorption (PSA), which takes the compressed air and separates it to produce a continuous high-yield stream of gas. 

Within the gas generation units themselves, pairs of extruded aluminium columns filled with high-performance carbon molecular sieves (CMS) preferentially adsorb the oxygen and trace gases from the air fed into the unit, effectively producing the desired nitrogen outflow by default.

The gas is then held in a dedicated storage vessel, to be supplied as required, at carefully regulated pressure. At pre-determined intervals, the system switches automatically to a regenerative mode, venting the contaminants it has collected from the body of the CMS, to allow the separation process to begin anew. 

While the idea of applying CMS to gas separation is not in itself a novel one, the unique elements of the Parker design have altered its efficacy beyond anything previously possible. As Turnbull explains, “The Maxigas series represented a real breakthrough. It was the first gas generation system that was able to deliver a reliable supply of nitrogen at a guaranteed, consistent purity, while offering significant improvements in energy efficiency.”

Market support

It is not just enhanced efficiency alone that has helped the company open up the export market and net the award for enterprise in international trade, despite its obvious potential for increased productivity and profitability in the food and beverage sectors. Timing has undoubtedly been one important factor, with processing companies – in common with other industrial sectors – now facing a burgeoning need to cut operating costs and implement ever-more sustainable approaches to their core business functions. The system is, then, palpably on-trend, doing away with the need for the expense of conventional gas storage arrangements, circumventing the demand for space to accommodate it and avoiding the associated health and safety issues surrounding pressurised or liquid gas storage. As a result, in addition to the direct savings to be made on-site, the energy dividend extends to reduced transport costs too, which clearly plays well in the marketplace from both economic and environmental standpoints.

However, Jako Meilner, an independent automation systems consultant, believes that Maxigas’s convenience and reliability, coupled with excellent field support, have perhaps made one of the biggest contributions to Parker domnick hunter’s export success. “For a start, the whole generator design is modular, so if you find your needs grow, extending nitrogen capacity is simple and that kind of flexibility is getting to be increasingly important these days. The other great thing is that it’s all fully automatic – the downstream processes govern gas production – so they’re remarkably easy systems to setup and operate and their operating life is maybe ten years or more, with only a small amount of routine servicing to keep them working to spec.”

He also points to the value of the company’s global dedicated network, which provides a range of specially tailored, preventative maintenance contracts. “It’s not exactly much of a revelation; good after-sales support has always been key to developing export markets; it all comes down to customer confidence. If you get that right, with a good product, the rest usually follows.”

Global growth market

Looking to the future, the omens would seem to be good for the further enlargement of the export market for alternative solutions to traditional industrial nitrogen sources, not least because of the wide range of possible applications to which they are relevant in the industry. From modified atmosphere packaging, purging and flushing, to pressure transfer and blanketing, food-grade nitrogen represents one of the fastest-expanding areas in the world market for industrial gas supply.

For obvious reasons, it is clearly something that Parker domnick hunter intends to target further, Derek Turnbull having quickly identified Maxigas technology as representing “real long-term potential” for the company in what he describes as “key global growth markets”.

Only time will tell if this will ultimately lead to a tenth award for further export achievements, but judging by past history – and the growing demand for cost-effective nitrogen production – it would seem unwise to bet too heavily against it.