CEO Jürg Oleas (l.), Dr. Daniel Bethge (r.)
September 2007 - Great success for the technology leader in the bio-ethanol sector.
After having won the Process Engineering Division innovation contests in May 2007, GEA Wiegand succeeded in reaching the top step of the victory podium on group level of the GEA Group AG. With a clear vote of the board under the management of Jürg Oleas and of seven division presidents GEA Wiegand's article came off as the winner.
With their ground-breaking innovation, the fathers of the success, Dr. Daniel Bethge and Dipl. Ing. Paul Hildenbrand, gave another proof of GEA Wiegand's innovative ability. With the integration of the technology of mechanical vapor recompression into the alcohol production process they succeeded in reaching a quantum leap. With this process which is secured by patent, the energy requirement for alcohol production can be reduced by a two-digit percentage. Only for the production of whisky the possible savings in the field of operating costs amount to several hundreds of thousands of EUROS.
GEA Innovation Award
In the field of bio-ethanol, this application is even more interesting. The savings amount to millions of EUROS which has a particularly positive effect in view of the increasing prices for raw materials. Apart from the enormous cost saving, this technology represents an important contribution to climate protection. Projected on today's usual 100,000-tons-plants, a reduction of CO2 of more than 15 mio. kg /a can be achieved.