Spent caustic recovery plant for reusing caustic solutions in the Diageo Great Northern Brewery, Dundalk
The goal of this project was to install a production scale membrane filtration plant in the filtration centre of the Dundalk brewery for the purposes of recovering spent caustic for reuse in the plant.
The recovery plant incorporating nanofiltration membrane technology has been successfully installed and is currently operational in the brewery. A dirty caustic solution from the regeneration of a brewing filter aid (PVPP) that was previously put to drain is now recovered in the membrane plant and reused again in PVPP regeneration.
A Volume Concentration Factor (VCF) of 10 is being consistently achieved which translates into a caustic recovery rate of 90%.
Benefits that have resulted include:
• Savings of 30,000 litres of fresh caustic per year.
• Savings of 129 tonnes of steam per year for heating caustic.
• Savings of 15,000 litres of acid for pH balancing in the effluent treatment plant.
Annual net savings generated by the membrane filtration plant amount to over €34,000 per annum.
For further details, download the Diageo PDF.
