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Free cooling with cooling towers in the biopharmaceutical business.

Author(s) : TRUELSEN J. P., RASMUSSEN O.

Summary

The biopharmaceutical industry uses large fermentation tanks in the bulk production facilities for producing the active ingredients of the product. The fermentors can be anywhere from 30 to 100 m3 in size. The fermentation process is an exothermal reaction and therefore must be cooled to keep the fermentation running at the optimum temperature. The optimum temperature is approximately 30°C. To remove the heat produced by the fermentation cooling water of 10 to 20°C is used. To minimize energy consumption, cooling tower water is used directly in the coils of the fermentors when the ambient wet-bulb temperature is low enough. At higher ambient wet-bulb temperatures, the cooling towers precool the water before ammonia chillers cool the water to the required temperature. This paper is based on existing cooling plants serving different fermentation facilities in Novo Nordisk A/S site in Kalundborg, Denmark. The cooling plants have been programmed into a simulation model. The results from these simulations are presented. The model calculates the total energy demand and the payback time for two different cooling systems.

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Pages: 2008-2

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Details

  • Original title: Free cooling with cooling towers in the biopharmaceutical business.
  • Record ID : 2009-0405
  • Languages: English
  • Source: 8th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Working Fluids (GL2008)
  • Publication date: 2008/09/07

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