A new approach to pasteurization control

During pasteurization, an already bottled product travels through a pasteurization tunnel where it is heated by water spray at various temperatures in different thermally controlled zones. During the process, each product must accumulate a certain number of pasteurizations units (PU – a one-minute exposure of the product to a temperature of 60°C). PRINCE software provides extremely accurate control of pasteurization units under any working conditions, i.e., with any sequence of pasteurizer starts and stops. With PRINCE, the entire product undergoing pasteurization accumulates at least the minimal number of PUs required and reaches and maintains for a pre-set time the range of temperatures required for pasteurization without ever exceeding the allowed maximum of PUs.

Regulation by prediction

Pasteurization control with PRINCE is based on the concept of predicting what the future situation will be. Instead of lowering the temperature of the spray when the product in a given zone exceeds the set pasteurization threshold, PRINCE lowers the temperature as soon as the prediction indicates that the product will accumulate sufficient PUs and will remain within the temperature limits.

Energy savings

A better use of heating and cooling processes in the pasteurizer’s controlled zones considerably reduces water and steam consumption. PRINCE eliminates needless variations in spray temperature. The product is never heated more than necessary and undergoes a single phase of heating and a single phase of cooling.

The PRINCE system was first installed at the Heineken Italy facility in Cagliari in February 2006. Since then, over 50 systems have been installed on new machines or existing lines, most recently at Frankfurt Brauhaus (Germany), Damm (Spain) and Carlsberg (Italy).