Inulin is a carbohydrate on the basis of fructose and is mainly produced by extraction from chicory roots. It is commercially available in form of a fine, white powder.
Due to its properties, inulin is suited as ingredient for the preparation of low-calorie wellness beverages, chocolate, spread, pastries, courseware, cream filling, dairy products.
Moreover, it is used to improve the blood sugar level of diabetics.
Basically, the inulin production process consists of the following steps: extraction, pre concentration, refining, final concentration and drying.
GEA Wiegand evaporators are used for the pre-concentration and for the final concentration of the extracted product. The downstream-arranged drying process is realized by means of a spray dryer.
Due to its properties at higher concentrations, the final concentration of inulin represents the more difficult part of evaporation. Moreover, the operating mode of the evaporator is considerably influenced by the downstream-arranged dryer. A sophisticated control conception is required to supply the dryer with a sufficient quantity of concentrated product, and to keep the wetting of the evaporator tubes constant despite the capacity fluctuations, in order to avoid a "baking" of the product on the heating tubes which would not only result in a deterioration of quality, but even to a reduction in capacity of the plant and therefore in an expensive cleaning.
An excessive wetting of the heating tubes has to be avoided, too, because this would lead to an increased residence time of the product in the evaporator. In case of temperature-sensitive products, the residence time affects the product quality to a large extent.
The physical properties of inulin require a certain temperature profile over the evaporation plant which depends on the product concentration. If a certain temperature limit value is not achieved at a certain product concentration, inulin will convert to an extremely hard mass within a short period of time which blocks the complete plant and which can only be removed after a difficult mechanical cleaning.
In a conventionally controlled evaporation plant the temperature profile automatically falls at partial load. In case of inulin, the control conception of the plant is responsible that even at the required partial loads the temperature profile remains on the correct level.
GEA Wiegand gained many precious experiences in tests and evaporation tests with inulin in the company's laboratory and during the commissioning of industrial-sized inulin evaporation plants.
Based on this experience we select the right evaporator type for you, the plant arrangement and the operating parameters as well as the best control conception in order to ensure a maximum product quality.