Systems and mechanical engineering
The roots of the mechanical engineering at Schmidt-Bretten can be found in the very early effort to build functional units for the food industry.
The customer - primarily dairies and juice producers - prefered functional
units consisting of plate heat exchangers and additional processing
components. This lead to heat exchangers with enhancements at the
frame to provide additional functions or small control units. Later on
such units have been used in the juice industry to avoid an oxidation
of the juices during the pasteurization process.
In 1960 Schmidt showed the first plate evaporator SIGMA 35/55 V for the
production of concentrates. These units had additional control
units for a semi-automatic process management. They were successfully
used in the dairy and juice industry.
In the seventies, Schmidt developed desulfiting units for the purpose
of extracting sulfur from grape juice. Sulfities are added to grape
juice for preservation. Grape juice is required to sweeten wines
which could otherwise be too sour for drinking.
In the beginning of the 1980-ies, Schmidt introduced the SIGMASTAR 45
/ 90 V. Since then a very successful new generation of plate evaporators.
The innovative pattern and structure of the evaporator plates was
ground braking in many areas of application. Designed as a climbing
film evaporator, the SIGMASTARs
for the first time allowed the treatment of highly viscous products
as concentrated purres or malt extracts up to 80 % dry substance.
At the end of the eighties Schmidt developed the first dealcoholzation plant for beer and wine. This unique technology has been improved in a way, that today beers can be dealcoholized to a remaining alcohol level of 0.005 Vol. %. And the process allows a complete retention of the flavours.
The precise fulfillment of the customer requirements determins our developments. In our laboratories we are designing the heat exchangers of the future .
The SIGMASTAR 150 V is one of the results. Since 2004 this enhancement of the SIGMASTAR technology enables our custormers to run thermal processes on the highest level of quality combined with a high throughput of fluids.
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