Presenter: Felix Wagner, M&L Engineering GmbH, Hofheim
am Taunus, Germany
Sustainability is a major topic among brewers of the world.
Large breweries strive to become “the greenest brewer.” But,
small and midsize brewers are interested as well, as sustainability
combines economics and consumer decisive soft facts, like
trust and credibility in a brand. In times of climate change and
limitation of resources, self-sustaining brewers are less prone
to taking risks. This is not only valid for developing countries,
but for developed ones as well—just remember power outages,
rising energy costs in grid dependent systems, and other influences
that might result from changes in legislation and possible
future market regulations. When analyzing the material and
energy flows into the system brewery, it comes down to electric
energy and one form of combustible primary energy on the
energy side, as well as fresh water on the material flow side.
On the out-feed side, the major flows are product (thankfully!)
but even more waste water (figures!). All energy usage can
be calculated as CO2 effluent, depending on the energy mix
used. Under this precondition, a sustainable and self-sustaining
brewer minimizes the in-feed of water and primary energy and
the out-feed of wastewater and CO2 effluent, while being as
grid independent as possible. With the CorEvapEnergy system,
a brewer can make a tremendous leap to become more sustainable
and self-sustaining. Especially for American brewers, with
the dawn of widely available natural fracking gas this system
provides electricity and heat energy at unbeaten efficiency
levels, as well as being economically related to the carbon
footprint. On the other side, it enables a reduction in freshwater
consumption and amount of wastewater effluent—truly a revolution!
The CorEvapEnergy system consists of coupling natural
gas-fired combined heat and electrical power generation with
sophisticated evaporator technology. A highly efficient power
generator transforms up to 43% of the primary energy into electricity.
The residual thermal energy produced can be utilized
either as process heat within the brewing process or to evaporate
wastewater and recover the condensate as process water.
Due to the continuous available heat sink of the evaporator,
the electricity production can be continuously driven without
the need to balance the energy streams of the brewery, even in
non-continuous production phases. Process water recovery can
be even increased by utilizing a vapor recompression unit to
electrically drive the evaporation process. A total of up to 95%
of the invested primary energy can be utilized.
After his apprenticeship in a small Bavarian brewery, Felix
Wagner continued his education at the Technical University
of Munich-Weihenstephan, where he graduated as a diploma
engineer in brewing. He started his professional career with
KHS Till in 1999, where he was responsible for R&D in the
field of kegging. During this time he concluded his doctorate
at Weihenstephan. From 2005 he led the mechanical design
team for KHS Process Technology in Bad Kreuznach, Germany,
before moving to China to work for the KHS China Joint
Venture as plant manager and deputy general manager. In
2010 he returned to Germany, taking the lead as head of the
KHS Competence Centre for Filling and Kegging Technology.
In 2012 Felix switched to M&L Engineering GmbH, which is
focusing on evaporator technology, a part of the corosys group.
corosys GmbH was founded in 2001 by partners with longtime
experience in the field of process technology, automation,
and instrumentation. Its focus is the production and supply
of high-quality sensors, complete process systems and skids,
components, and automation to the brewing industry.
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