Increase the operating efficiency of the equipment for the liquid nutrient medium sterilization

Abstract

The irrelevant microflora in liquid nutrient media suppresses the growth of the culture of microorganisms, as well as changes the composition and properties of the nutrient medium, so it needs to be sterilized. Existing machine-and-apparatus schemes are quite energy-consuming and difficult to maintain, so increasing their efficiency is an urgent task. The feature of the proposed scheme of continuous sterilization of a liquid nutrient medium based on molasses with a productivity of 25 m3/h is the use of two contact heads, one of which is heated by the secondary vapor, and a tubular heat exchanger to cool sterile nutrient medium. Thermal and hydrodynamic processes that occur during processing, are simulated in the Flow Vision software system. The results of the computational experiment conducted in the Flow Vision software system indicate that the product speed through pipelines is on average 1.1 m/s and is sufficient to provide the desired productivity at moderate costs of transportation. For the considered scheme, the rational values of heat carriers temperatures required to achieve the desired product temperatures during its sterilization and cooling were determined. So, the heating steam temperature should be 132 ° С, the temperature of the cooling water should be 15 °С.