Test Center: Laboratory Facilities
The Test Center station in GEA Process Engineering (France) includes a laboratory with 16 existing pilot plants and 3 pilots under development. New and existing processes are developed using dual resources, laboratory equipment and semi-industrial plants.
The laboratory is a key part of our Test Center capacity for process development and testing of new product. The primary aims of this laboratory are:
- To study the behaviour of the product at all process stages and to check the feasibility of the process with small quantities
- To determine the physical properties of the product at any stage of the investigation
- To optimise the cost of the pilot plant testing by selecting the most promising processes.
The overall surface is around 90 m2. Common unit operation in chemical engineering is carried out using glassware, e.g. evaporation, distillation, crystallisation, filtration, decantation, stripping, extraction, etc.
A full range of equipment is available to determine physical properties of solution, e.g. viscometer, boiling point elevation apparatus, conductivity-meter, pH meter, particle size measurement, density-meter, Chemical Oxygen Demand, heat capacity measurement, among others.
Tests are carried out in glass jars, the products behaviour during the entire concentration or crystallisation is studied. During these tests, data on the liquor’s physical properties are collected.
A multiparameter analyser and recorder briefcase is also available for tests in our laboratory or directly on the clients’ production site.
GEA Process Engineering also can use the service of independent laboratories, which are able to carry out any chemical and physical analysis at a reasonable charge.
Two fume cupboards are present with a ventilation flow rate of 2500 m3/h.
Product Database
Pilot Results - Year 1926
Since the creation of our Test Center Station, we have carried out more than 1 000 tests on products or families of products of which 150 are now produced in our units around the world. Each year more than 30 new products are successfully tested in our facilities.