Wolf Butterback hails successful trials of GEA BlueQ chiller series
German-based bakery business Wolf Butterback has reported successful field testes of GEA’s BlueQ chiller with CompaX, considered as being one of the world’s first semi-hermetic compact screw compressor for ammonia.
The company specialises in manufacturing Danish pastries that it sells frozen to bakeries, ready to cook for their customer base.
As the business explained, its investment programme began two years ago, amid broader plans to enhance the business. Central to its uprated operations, the new GEA technology has acted as a base-load machine in a system of several chillers to provide cooling power to re-cool the CO2 deep freezing system.
Jens Geyer, Head of Cooling Technology at Woolf ButterBack, reported that the equipment’s comparatively small footprint and intuitive OMNI control system that controls the entire chiller system had proved particularly strong features.
He said: “The chiller with the GEA CompaX, has been in use here since 2018 and, in that time, has logged 15,000 operating hours, meaning it’s been in operation almost 24/7,” he said. “Even on hot summer days, with outside temperatures of up to 36°C, the compressor worked perfectly and responded impressively to load changes.”
The GEA CompaX is one of the world’s first semi-hermetic, compact screw compressor for ammonia with a gas-cooled motor. It has a 3-in-1 design which combines the motor, compressor and oil separator into a very compact and hermetically-sealed unit. Since No mechanical seal is required the risk of ammonia leaking into the environment is reportedly significantly reduced.
The GEA BluQ chiller, with GEA CompaX at its heart, received the ‘Accelerate Europe Innovation of the Year’ award in 2018. The BluQ requires only 40-50 grams of ammonia content per kilowatt of cooling capacity and meets all energy efficiency and environmental protection requirements.
It is available in two sizes: the CompaX 700 has a swept volume flow of 708m3/h which, at a maximum rotational speed of 5200rpm, allows the BluQ to provide up to 1300kW of cooling capacity for air conditioning; when used with the larger CompaX 900, with a swept volume of 870m3/h, the BluQ will generate up to 1600kW.
The system’s GEA Omni control panel features an intuitive, high-definition, multi-touch interface which allows the user to operate their GEA system with maximum efficiency and reliability. In addition to the field test at Wolf ButterBack, GEA BluQ with GEA Compax has proved itself in further industrial applications and has been installed to provide air conditioning.
