Sine wave pumps slash winery tanker offload times 07 August 2014

Broadland Wineries is reporting a massive boost in efficiency since replacing positive displacement (PD) pumps with MasoSine process pumps, from Watson Marlow.

Engineering projects manager Bryan Tooke says the outcome as an immediate halving of the time for offloading juice tankers, while wine offloading times were cut by 25%.

The Norwich-based firm, which processes 28—35 million litres per year for customers including supermarket chains, brings in wine by the tanker load, typically 24,000 litres at a time.

Tooke says the plant's previous Italian-built PD pumps were ageing and slow at transferring wine from the tankers to its processing plant.

They were also struggling with the concentrated, high-viscosity fruit juices, which it requires for certain wines.

"We cannot accept any damage to our wines or fruit juices," comments Tooke. "Any whisking effects created by pumping introduce oxygen, which is detrimental. So pump quality, performance and flow rate are vital."

Changing to a centrifugal pump was ruled out, due to the inherent risk of cavitation in the wine, potentially affecting dissolved CO2 levels and the pump itself.

Tooke says he was familiar with MasoSine process pump technology, and its low-shear, gentle pumping action, from a previous role at a food manufacturing company. So he requested a trial of an SPS 400 pump.

The results, he says, were immediate and startling. "We saw a reduction in our tanker offload time for wine to 45 minutes – a process which previously took an hour," states Tooke.

"For fruit juice, the impact was even bigger. We can now decant in four hours, whereas before it could take a full day, particularly in cold weather."

Broadland Wineries subsequently ordered two MasoSine 400 pumps for that process and has recently also placed an order for a further MasoSine SPS 400 plus two EcoSine 40 pumps for use in the factory, in transportation and manufacturing processes.

Brian Tinham

Related Companies
Watson Marlow Pumps Group

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