no.

31
an international magazine from alfa laval

“The compabloc technology

has c­ ontributed to our
efforts to be as energy-
efficient as possible.”
En Ahmad Hamizan Hasan,
Petronas Kerteh refinery

EXPERTS PREDICT:

GOOD
BUSINESS
IS HERE
TO STAY70 % of companies have placed
sustainability permanently on
their management agendas.

Genious membranes efficiency boost big job made better

Danish food producer Compablocs help New decanters make
turns former waste Malaysian refinery cut all the difference to
into refined product. costs and energy use. US wastewater giant.
www.alfalaval.com/here  here xxxxx 2011 | 1
Contents No. 31

18 Wastewater giant
The world’s largest wastewater treatment
plant doubled its capacity to better serve
the residents of Chicago and its suburbs.

6 Profit from sustainability 29 Improvements with an impact

A sustainable business agenda is good Alfa Laval’s life-cycle assessment of
for the planet and the bottom line. products reduces their environmental
impact and creates customer value.
16 Emissions reduced to zero
By using well-known technology in a new 30 CSR pioneer
way, South African ammonia producer India’s Tata steel has been practising so-
AEL cut emissions while making a profit. cial responsibility for a hundred years.

22 From drain to tap 32 Reducing emissions

Treated wastewater can be safely on the road
recycled for many purposes, even Truck-maker Scania trusts Alfa Laval’s
human consumption. Alfdex oil mist separator to clean
crankcase gases.
28 Higher and more
sustainable 34 Committed to sustainability
Discover the eco-friendly and record-high Alfa Laval works to help customers and
Lotte World Tower in Korea. improve its own track record.

2 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 Urgent challenges
call for innovative solutions
A recent report by
editorial MIT Sloan Manage-
10 Refiner’s dream ment Review and the Boston
Consulting Group has found that
Compabloc technology helps 70 percent of companies have
Petronas’ Kerteh refinery be- placed corporate sustainability
come more energy-efficient. permanently on the management
agenda. This increased interest
results partly from growing
awareness about environmental
matters and increased interest in
24 Profits from waste being a “good corporate citizen”,
Arla Food Ingredients turns former but primarily from a growing
waste into valuable food additives understanding that being sustain-
using membrane technology. able contributes to long-term
profitability and business success.
“Doing good” has become good for
business.
We have seen a significant
increase in customer interest in our Our investments in research and
technologies as a way to reduce development have put us on the
energy and CO2 emissions and to cutting edge in these areas. We strive
clean and reuse water for different to be regularly involved in various
purposes. Alfa Laval’s objective is to pilot installations, and our efforts are
supply customers with products and being recognized. In 2011 Thomson
solutions that can help boost their Reuters named Alfa Laval one of the
productivity and competitiveness world’s 100 most innovative
while reducing their energy con- companies.
sumption and environmental impact.
One example is the Stickney Water Running a business in a more
Reclamation Plant, the world’s sustainable way requires continuous
largest water reclamation plant, learning. At Alfa Laval we have made
here situated in suburban Chicago. There real progress over the past few years.
www.alfalaval.com/here Alfa Laval decanters transform some In this issue you can read about
No. 31, November 2012 5 billion litres of wastewater a day our energy-saving projects that
into clean water and agricultural between 2008 and 2011 resulted in
A magazine from: products (see page 18). savings of 10,000 MWh, approxi-
Alfa Laval Corporate AB
mately the energy consumption in
PO Box 73
Today we are facing fundamental the US for a 24-hour period. But we
SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden
challenges brought about by can still improve, and we look
Publisher: Peter Torstensson constantly increasing energy forward to helping our customers
Editor-in-chief: Eva Schiller demands, harmful CO2 emissions improve as well, so that together we
email: [email protected], tel. +46 46 36 71 01 and large amounts of wastewater can build a more sustainable
Production: Spoon Publishing AB that need to be treated. These tomorrow.
Editorial manager: Åsa Lovell challenges are global and urgent,
Art director: David Eide especially in the emerging econo-
mies, and will require investments in
Cover photo: iStock Photo infrastructure and improvements in
Translations: Space 360
process optimization and productiv-
Prepress: Spoon Publishing AB
ity. Although many solutions are
Print: JMS Mediasystem AB
already in place, the need for innova- Lars Renström
here is published twice a year in Chinese, English, tion is obvious. President and CEO, Alfa Laval Group
French, German, Japanese and Russian.
 District heating
brilliance
In Austria, Alfa Laval has trained
150 service employees of Vienna’s
district heating department, Wien

Green heat and

Energie, in the basics of gasketed
plate heat exchangers.
Wien Energie is one of
the largest district heating
companies in Europe.
Sixty-eight percent of
water for university
its heat comes from the More than 8,000 students and staff working, studying and living
cogeneration of waste heat at a university in the United States will soon enjoy energy-efficient
from municipal power plants heat and hot tap water.
and large industrial plants. The district heating will be facilitated by efficient Alfa Laval
Environmentally friendly district heat exchanger systems, which will reduce the energy
A district heating
heating conserves resources and consumption of the district heat requirements for the campus. solution in the USA
releases about half as much CO2 The systems will enable the university to monitor and allows for each
per megawatt hour into the atmos- manage the climate and hot water temperatures at building to manage
each building independently to maximize energy its own hot water
phere as gas heating. Wien Energie temperatures.
operates an interconnected pipeline savings. Delivery will be completed in 2014.
system for district heating that ex-
tends more than 1,100 kilometres.

1 BILLION
The number of people in the world who lack
clean drinking water, according to the United Nations.
Appreciated Its goal is to cut that number in half by 2015.

CSR efforts
A leading supplier of ocean
transport solutions was asked to
pinpoint two of its largest and most
crucial product suppliers in connec-
tion with a project to identify and
document the Danish shipping

40%
industry’s contribution to
social and environmental

Xxx
progress.
J. Lauritzen identified
se in
Alfa Laval alongside cted increa
is the proje er at io n from
ship paint supplier er g en
global pow d o ther
Jotun Norge, due in r, wind an
hydro, sola ce s o ve r
large part to its posi- so ur
renewable s.
e year
tive CSR examples. J. the next fiv
Lauritzen developed an ernational
Source: Int
cy
Energy Agen
appreciation for Alfa Laval’s
ongoing CSR efforts after
being introduced to its programme
and vision during a visit to Alfa Laval
in Billingsstad, Norway.

Xxx xxx
Upcycling waste
In contrast to “recycling”, which

A green celebration for 75

generally involves a conversion
process to turn waste into some-
thing useful, “upcycling” refers to
waste that is used directly, without Alfa Laval employees in India recently Alfa Laval India’s management team joined
any energy-demanding conversion celebrated the 75 years that Alfa Laval has been more than 75 employees at the company’s Da-
process. One upcycler is African de- in operation in the country by planting saplings podi facility for the environmental commitment.
signer Hamed Ouattara, who builds in a pledge for a greener earth. “In the past 75 years, our business has grown
furniture from used metal barrels More than 1,200 saplings were planted at steadily,” says Jose Hernanz, Managing Director
that were previously used to store Pune, Satara and Sarole, where Alfa Laval’s for Alfa Laval India. “Planting trees is a symbol of
gasoline and cooking oil. manufacturing facilities in India are situated. our belief in the future.”

4 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 NEWS
Oil workers off
the Brazilian
coast will soon
Mixer upgrade
enjoy freshwater
made from
leads to
seawater. easy savings
An international biotechnology
company has optimized its existing
batch production and is saving
thousands of dollars daily simply by
upgrading mixing capabilities in its
tanks.
The company’s bio-based end
product requires continuous mixing
in tanks ranging from 50 to 600
litres as the product flows to the
final filling stage.
Alfa Laval discovered that valu-
able end product was being wasted
because the company’s existing
bottom-mounted magnetic mixers
required stopping while each batch
still contained up to 20 percent of
product in the bottom of the tank.
Six-inch magnetic mix-
ers from Alfa Laval in-
stalled in 100-liter tanks
immediately achieved

Maximizing uptime off Brazil close to 100 percent yield.

By recovering 20 litres of
additional mixed product per
Freshwater generators installed on oil timize uptime by controlling diesel oil quality for tank, the company began sav-
platforms off the Brazilian coast will convert power generation. Alfa Laval will begin fulfilling ing as much as USD 20,000 per
seawater into freshwater for use as process and the 85 MSEK order for the compact equipment batch per day — and even more in
potable water, while diesel purifiers will help op- in 2013, with finalization scheduled for 2015. larger tanks.

Alfa Laval made

exclusive list
Business data leader Thomson
Reuters has included Alfa Laval in its
list of the world’s 100 most
innovative companies. The exclusive
list is determined through a
combination of key performance
indices related to innovation.
“Innovation is a means of growth
and prosperity for companies and

Paint the town white

nations seeking to overcome sluggish
economies and achieve competitive
advantage,” says David Brown,
president of Thomson Reuters’ The next time you fly over New York City, check out the white rooftops.
Intellectual Property Solutions It’s part of the NYC CoolRoofs initiative, which encourages building
business. owners to cool their rooftops by applying highly reflective white paint.
Alfa Laval was named a Top 100 Coated roofs are as much as 17 degrees Celsius colder than standard
Global Innovator alongside five other tar roofs, reducing the amount of air conditioning needed for the
Swedish companies and the world’s rest of the building.
global technology giants.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 5

Outlook SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

Sustainability
as a business
strategy
Sustainability is now firmly on management agendas
worldwide, according to a new report. Sustainable
business practices are not only positive for the
planet and its inhabitants, but they are also
good for the bottom line.
text: David Wiles

C
ompanies around the world are slowly
but surely coming round to the realization
that sustainability is good for business.
They are waking up to the fact that it pays
to take a long-term perspective, anticipate
the future and create stronger, healthier
and more prosperous markets to sell into.
There has also been a realization – amongst Big Business
as well as the activists and the protesters of the Occupy Wall
Street movement – that a focus on profits in the short term
contributed to the shaky global economic situation of the
past five years. As Samuel J Dipiazza Jr, president of Pricewa-
terhouseCoopers, has stated: "The current financial crisis is
the result of short-term and unsustainable business models.”
Sustainability is now firmly established in many
boardrooms, partly as a response to consumer demand but
also because of a growing awareness that being sustainable
can contribute to long-term business success. A new report
by MIT Sloan Management Review, in collaboration with the
Boston Consulting Group, found that 70 percent of
companies have placed sustainability permanently on
their management agendas. More than two-thirds
say their organization’s commitment to sustaina-
bility has increased in the past year, and an even
larger proportion say they plan to increase
their commitment to sustainability.
Two-thirds of those surveyed said that

6 | here november 2012 

 The potential of the
corporate sector to
contribute to sustainable
development is greater
than ever.”
viktor nylund, unicef
Outlook SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS

We are really seeing

great ­improvements across
industries and in all regions
of the world.”
knut haanaes, boston consulting group

sustainability is necessary to being competitive in today’s

marketplace, up from 55 percent the year before.
“I think companies believe in sustainability because they
see positive outcomes from it,” says Knut Haanaes, head of
the Boston Consulting Group’s global sustainability
practice and co-author of the report. “Driving sustainabil-
ity strategies is very much linked to being more efficient in
your value chain, reducing waste, being more efficient in
your use of resources, recycling and so on. So it is also about
good management practices.”

Bo Viktor Nylund, head of corporate social responsibility

at UNICEF, says companies have tremendous potential to
contribute to sustainable development. “Many companies
are bigger than states in terms of their financial turnover
and have massive financial resources at their disposal,” he
says. “If you look at today’s financial situation, where
government budgets are highly strained, the potential of
the corporate sector to contribute to sustainable develop-
ment is greater than ever.”
Haanaes says the private sector has an important role in
putting the planet on a more sustainable
path because that is where the technical
solutions that are needed will come from.
“Companies are extremely powerful
because the fundamental challenges we are
facing will require e­ normous innovation and
enormous improvements in p ­ roductivity,” he says.
“And which organizations globally are able to do
this? It’s the companies. Sure, regulation is
important, frameworks are important, but
most of the solutions will actually come
out of new business practices, new

8 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

innovations, new ways of addressing customer needs.” and then there are people who primarily look at short-term
Interestingly, and contrary to what one might expect, gains and not really what is in the long-term interests of the
the report found that many companies are actually business,” he says. “What I hear from business is that it also
increasing their commitment to sustainability initiatives takes time for them to do the convincing internally. It’s not
despite the current economic uncertainty. “I think that is just about convincing one person, it’s about a process within
in part driven by uncertainty on the resource side,” business as well.”
Haanaes says. “Resource and energy prices make companies Besides making their own operations and processes more
look at ways of being more efficient. Another driver is that sustainable, companies that are sustainable-minded can
companies identify sustainability as a megatrend, encourage others to get on board by choosing to do
­something that it is worth addressing today because business with partners such as suppliers who themselves
waiting until tomorrow might be more costly, and they are active in corporate social responsibility, Nylund says.
might gain benefits by moving early.” “Supply chain issues are tremendously important,” he
says. “Large corporations can work with their business part-
Two companies that have fallen foul of sustainability ners to introduce this agenda and not deal with companies
campaigners and then learned their lessons and become that don’t live up to their own high standards.”
CSR role models are Nike and Kimberly-Clark. Both have Haanaes says the study has revealed new evidence that
been subjected in the past to stinging criticism for their companies are making a strong commitment to sustainable
production methods – Nike for sweatshops and other business practices and are investing time and money in
human rights violations, and Kimberly-Clark for cutting strategies that address a business environment that is
down old-growth boreal forests. But then, in 2010, Nike was increasingly shaped by climate change, resource scarcity,
named by the Ethisphere Institute as one of the world’s regulatory uncertainty and economic volatility.
most ethical companies, and from 2005 to 2009 Kimberly- “If you look at most industrial companies, including Alfa
Clark was ranked first in the Dow Jones sustainability world Laval, and compare them with how they operated 30 – or
index in the personal products category. even 10 – years ago, they have made huge strides,” he
“This shows that companies are willing to change,” says. “I think they will continue to do that. I don’t
says Haanaes. “Companies are good at adapting, at foresee a day when every company is fully sustainable,
changing when change is necessary. And some of the but we are really seeing great improvements across
companies that adapt the quickest are companies that ­industries and in all regions of the world.”
are hit by crisis.”
Nylund says that UNICEF sees children’s rights as an
essential investment in a sustainable future and that

40 %
safeguarding these rights helps build the strong, well-edu-

43 %
cated communities that are vital for a stable and produc-
tive business environment. In March, UNICEF, together
with the UN Global Compact and Save the Children,
launched the Children’s Rights and Business is how much more efficient
is the weight Corporate
­Principles to identify a range of actions that all business processes are in
Social Responsibility (CSR)
companies that have strong
businesses should take to respect children’s rights. has in a company’s reputation.
sustainability programmes.
According to the Reputation
According to a study comparing Institute’s 2011 Pulse Survey.
Nyland is generally positive about the business companies with strong
sustainability programmes
community’s response to the initiative. “But as with any with companies with
organizational change process, there are people who poor ones.

really believe in the agenda and want to make it happen,

88 %
of people in their 20s and 30s
5, 500
and more companies around
Engagement
The more a company actively
pursues worthy environmental
and social efforts, the more
choose employers based on engaged its employees are.
the world issued sustainability
strong CSR values, and 86 % reports in 2011, up from about According to a survey of more than
would consider leaving if a 100,000 employees at 230 workplaces.
800 a decade ago.
company’s CSR values no longer
met their expectations.
According to a survey of more
than 100,000 employees
at 230 workplaces.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 9

 Xxxxx

Refiner’s formula for

Energy
Efficiency

Petronas’ Kerteh refinery

in Malaysia has enhanced
its energy efficiency by
using Compabloc
technology.

10 | here xxxxx 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 In its efforts to continually
implement sustainable practices
in its operations, Petronas has
invested in cutting-edge energy-
efficient technology.
TEXT: justin harper photo: stefen chow

s
pirits are high at Petronas’ Kerteh refinery
on the east coast of Malaysia. The refinery
celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. At
the same time it is shifting to an all-year-
round operation and implementing efforts to
improve its energy efficiency.
The first of two such projects was completed in
November 2010 and will reduce the energy consumption
in the Petronas Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) by almost
10 percent while reducing CO2 emissions by 8,000
tonnes per year. This is very good news for the national
oil and gas company, an industry where margins are
critically important for business sustainability.
The second project is scheduled to turn the refinery
into a 24/7 operation and is due to be completed by
February 2013. When completed, this is expected to
increase capacity by as much as 600,000 barrels of crude
oil a year from 17.65 million to 18.25 million, while
improving energy efficiency and reducing the CO2
emissions of the CDU even further.
Both projects involve the use of Alfa Laval’s compact
welded plate heat exchangers, known as Compablocs.
This equipment is designed to recover the maximum
amount of heat produced in the refinery processes.
The advantages of Alfa Laval Compablocs are their
small size, lower maintenance and better energy efficien-
cy compared with traditional shell-and-tube (S&T) heat
exchangers.

Project One , which involved the installation of a

Compabloc in the CDU via a design configuration,
allowed the refinery to keep the original S&T on

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 11

 the Kerteh refinery in brief

• About 500 employees work at the

Kerteh refinery.
• It distils 124,000 barrels of crude oil a
day – including 50,000 barrels of crude
oil via its Crude Distillation Unit.
• Its main products are petrol, diesel and
liquid petroleum gas, which are
mainly sold to local consumers.
• This year Petronas celebrated
30 years at Kerteh.
• Petronas is ranked 68th in the
prestigious Global Fortune 500 list and
is among the world’s most profitable
companies.

The Kerteh refinery has been awarded an ISO 14001 for environmental standards and an ISO 9002 for quality standards.

stand-by and achieved a payback period savings will have a big impact on the bottom line.
of less than a year. Encik Khairul Emran Aziz Badli, the refinery’s Head of
Alfa Laval Compabloc heat exchanger Technical Services, says: “The energy savings are good
technology was not the typical technolo- and the commissioning was achieved within the
gy to use in such a critical refinery targeted timelines.”
process, but based on the proven results of While the cost savings is important, the Compabloc
greater energy efficiency and technologi- also contributed to the refinery’s energy efficiency
cal reliability, the company decided to rating. This is measured according to the Solomon
implement it at the refinery. Energy Intensity Index (EII), an industry standard. The
The Compabloc was delivered in August lower the score, the more energy-efficient you are. The
2010 and commissioned in November the Kerteh facility, which was already in the top quarter of
same year. The company has since the world’s most energy-efficient refineries, cut its score
recorded encouraging results. The energy by three points with the Compabloc technology.
costs of heating the crude oil in the CDU Eva Andersson, Alfa Laval’s regional manager for
were 0.0576 gigajoules per barrel (GJ/bbl) Southeast Asia, says: “Reducing the environmental
CEO Ahmad before the Compabloc was installed, footprint is on most refineries’ agenda today, and the
Hamizan Hasan based on existing start-of-run figures. After the Compa- refineries in Southeast Asia are of course no exception.”
says the goal is bloc was installed, this was brought down to 0.0525 GJ/
to run the refinery
365 days a year.
bbl. This represents a 9.2 percent savings in total energy Due to the success of Project One, Petronas decided to
consumption per year. This translates into less fuel gas install another six Compablocs along the pre-heat train,
needed in the fired heater, something that will also which warms the oil before it reaches the crude distilla-
reduce the CO2 emissions by 8,000 tonnes per year. tion tower.
As part of its decision-making process, Petronas sent a
Cost savings are crucial at the Kerteh refinery, given team to a refinery in France that had commissioned two
that it is designed to refine the local Tapis oil, which is very Compablocs in 2010.
expensive compared with other types of crude. Any cost The project engineering, procurement and construction

12 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 At Kerteh there is
an annual Energy
Day to raise
awareness among
employees about
saving energy.

The Kerteh
refinery has now
become more
competitive, says
Process Engineer
Puan Raudhah
Damanhuri.

Due to their minimal space

requirements, Compabloc
heat exchangers can be
added to the pre-heat train
while still keeping existing
S&Ts in stand-by.

The Compabloc technology has CEO of Petronas’ Kerteh refinery, En Ahmad Hamizan Hasan.
He says: “When I joined in 2009, there were a few improve- 8,000 tonnes
contributed to our efforts to be ments I wanted to make. One of them was to make the plant
reduction in CO2
as energy-efficient as possible.” run 365 days a year. With energy prices rising all the time,
emissions per year
has been achieved,
margins are constantly being squeezed.” thanks to the
En Ahmad Hamizan Hasan Compabloc
A 365-day, 24/7 operation does not just equate to cost
solution. 
savings. It also reduces the risk of accidents happening,
phase began in January this year and is due to be as these are more likely to occur during shutdowns. 9.2 % is the
completed in February 2013. While this will further During maintenance periods, contract workers expected reduction
in energy use from
improve energy efficiency and reduce CO2 emissions, the unfamiliar with the refinery are often brought in to help replacing a
main objective was to allow the refinery to become a with cleaning tasks while permanent staff complete their shell-and-tube
365-day-a-year operation facility, thus avoiding plant duties in an environment different than normal condi- heat exchanger
with the Alfa Laval
shutdowns that would affect its efficiency. This is tions. Accidents can be catastrophic, costing innocent Compabloc in the
expected to boost production by 600,000 barrels a year. lives and billions of dollars. Crude Distillation
One of the key advantages of Compabloc is that with Working with an energy consultant, Petronas’ Kerteh Unit.
its small space requirements, it can be installed alongside refinery conducted pinch analysis along the pre-heat
365 days per year
an existing the S&T system, which is bigger and bulkier. train, looking at new configurations for its layout that operation
This means both systems can exists in a parallel configu- could lead to even greater energy savings. will achieve cost
ration, keeping the old S&T in stand-by. When a Compa- Technologist Puan Raudhah Damanhuri, who helped savings and reduce
the risk of
blocs need to be cleaned, which is typically much less oversee Project One, says: “The advent of new technolo- accidents, which
frequent than S&T, the refinery can switch to the old gies in the past five years allowed us to compete and be at are more likely to
system to ensure that output is not disrupted. par with world-class refineries.” occur during the
shutdown stage.
Petronas has three refineries in Malaysia (two in
Today, the Kerteh refinery is normally closed 10 to 12 days Malacca along with Kerteh). Says Ahmad Hamizan: “The
a year for S&T maintenance. When the continuous operation Compabloc technology has contributed to our efforts to
goes live next year it will mark a major achievement for the be as energy-efficient as possible.”

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 13

INNOVATION flng
Xxxxx

Go long,
go FLNG
In South Korea, ­construction of the world’s first floating
liquefied natural gas plant is under way. When completed it will
allow natural gas to be h­ arvested in difficult-to-reach o
­ r otherwise
constrained underwater locations and processed directly
on site. Alfa Laval technology is part of the project.
text: Risto Pakarinen illustration: shell

Natural gas has become the fastest- gas directly on site. The gas is cooled to cooling medium used in the vital cooling
growing energy resource in the world. minus 162° C, where it takes a liquid form, applications in the gas liquefaction process,
Although it is a fossil fuel, it is the cleanest- shrinking in volume by a factor of 600, allow- and heat exchangers and separators for the
burning fossil fuel, and as such it is a ing it to be shipped. gas treatment processes.
cleaner alternative to oil – and especially to The FLNG facilities may also help de-
coal. Both coal and oil release higher levels Alfa Laval is now a part of the first FLNG crease the potential environmental impact
of harmful emissions. In particular, coal facility under construction, Shell’s Prelude of operating a plant on land since they
produces twice as much carbon dioxide as FLNG project which will be located off the eliminate the need for pipelines and other
natural gas, as well as much higher levels of coast of Australia, thanks to a recent agree- infrastructure onshore.
nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2) ment with the Technip Samsung Consortium The Prelude facility will measure
and ash particles that contribute to pollution. to supply equipment to the facility. 488 metres from bow to stern,
But the richest natural gas fields can be Alfa Laval will deliver sea water filters, six times the length of a Boe-
under the sea floor and difficult to reach, desalination units (which convert seawater ing 747. It will be stationed
which is why there have been plans for more to freshwater to be used for steam genera- more than 200 kilome-
than a decade to build a floating liquefied tion, process water and potable water), heat tres offshore in West-
natural gas (FLNG) plant that processes the exchangers that use seawater to cool the ern Australia.

natural gas in short

• Natural gas is a combustible mixture • Natural gas, on an energy-equivalent
of hydrocarbon gases, formed primarily basis, emits 50 % less CO2 than coal
of methane. and 30 % less CO2 than oil, making it the
best fossil fuel source available to reduce
• It is considered the cleanest fossil fuel
greenhouse gas emissions.  
because it produces emissions much
lower than those of other fossil fuels. • Global gas demand is expected to
i­ncrease by more than 50 % between
• Because of its environmental benefits,
2010 and 2035.
natural gas used for electricity genera-
tion has increased dramatically during • LNG is the fastest-growing component
the past 10 years. of the global natural gas market.

14 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 Xxxxx

flng challenges

The FLNG facility is roughly a quarter the size of a

conventional LNG facility with the same production
capacity.
It must be able to operate and stay safely moored
even in the most extreme weather conditions.
The Prelude facility is designed to withstand the
most powerful, category 5, tropical cyclones.

www.alfalaval.com/here  herehere
november 2012 | 15
xxxxx 20112
 CHALLENGE Ammonia-polluted
steam from African Explosives’
­factory was affecting local residents.
SOLUTION With well-known products
in a new application Alfa Laval
­recovered the ammonia for reuse,
cutting emissions to almost zero.
Text: Toby Selander/eric Gourley
photo: Toby Selander

A successful team.
Alfa Laval’s Moses Modibela
(left) with AEL’s Alan Pikor
(middle) and Dave Hill (right).
www.alfalaval.com/here here march 2009 16
Pollution-free recipe
A
frican explosives ltd (AEL) is
one of the largest commercial THIS IS HOW IT WORKS
explosive producers in the
1. 17 tonnes/hour of
world. AEL produces ammo- steam containing
nium nitrate, the most 300 kilograms of
ammonia (NH3)
common component in explosives, at its
plant in Modderfontein, 20 kilometres 2. 60 % nitric acid
(HNO3) solution AlfaVap
northeast of the Johannesburg city centre. evaporator
As South Africa’s largest metropolitan area AlfaCond
developed outward, the plant’s proximity to Steam condenser
new residential communities eventually
posed a problem. Hot side
(95 °C)
White steam laden with ammonia was
3. Steam
rising from the plant’s stacks, polluting the condensing
air and accelerating over-fertilization. While
Cold side
the discharged ammonia was diluted with air (75 °C)
4. NH3 + HNO3
and didn’t exceed the government-imposed = NH4NO3
limits on human exposure, it was still an
environmental concern for AEL.

Technical Services Manager Alan Pikor

Circulation of
knew the ammonia could be separated from cooling water
the steam. He recalled an article he had read 6. Boiling
evaporation
in Alfa Laval’s here magazine about desalina- of NH4NO3
tion in the Middle East, and he contacted the
company.
Within a day, Alfa Laval had suggested a 85 °C
unique solution using well-known products
but in a completely new application – the
plate evaporator AlfaVap and the plate
condenser AlfaCond. After a few minor
alterations and some additional equipment, 5. 8 % ammonium
nitrate (NH4NO3)
the solution was soon ready for action. solution
The solution was designed to slash
ammonia emissions from 200 tonnes per
month to 10 kilograms per year, benefiting
the environment and residents in the
7. 50 % NH4NO3
surrounding communities.
Since implementation in May 2009, AEL 8. Clean water
has recovered 3,217 tonnes of ammonia, using
DENNA GRAFIK ÄR SKYDDAD AV UPPHOVSRÄTTSLAGEN.
11,860 tonnes of nitric acid in the process INGA ÄNDRINGAR (TILLÄGG ELLER RADERINGAR) FÅR UTFÖRAS UTAN UPPHOVSMANNENS TILLSTÅND.
UPPHOVSMANNENS NAMN-BYLINE, (GRAFIK AV TOMAS ÖHRLING) I VERSALER, SKALL SYNAS VID PUBLICERING AV DENNA

while producing 15,300 tonnes of ammonium The concentration of ammonia in the air “The cost savings have been an added
GRAFIK. DETTA ÄR ETT VILLKOR FÖR TILLSTÅND ATT PUBLICERA GRAFIKEN SÅVIDA EJ ANNAT AVTALATS. NAMNBYLINE
SKALL HA SÅDAN STILGRAD ATT DEN ÄR LÄTTLÄST PÅ NORMALT LÄSAVSTÅND (DOCK MINST

nitrate solution. “The solution is running has been reduced to almost zero. Not only do bonus for the plant,” he says. “The most
6 PUNKTERS STORLEK). FRÅGOR OCH SYNPUNKTER PÅ DETTA BESVARAS AV TOMAS ÖHRLING PÅ TELEFON
0708 411 279 ELLER E-POST [email protected]

well,” Pikor says. “It’s become a critical part of neighbouring residents no longer see the important thing is that we’re no longer
our plant over the past few years and contin- steam or smell the ammonia emissions, but polluting the atmosphere with ammonia.
ues to pay for itself over time. The amount of the former pollution is now converted into People were very surprised when we started
ammonia we’re recovering is more than we ammonium nitrate, saving AEL the cost of an coming up with figures about what we’ve
originally thought.” additional 200 tonnes of ammonia monthly. recovered month by month. The environ-
Pikor says the ammonia savings achieved mental impact has been so positive.”
The process continues to utilize minimal since commissioning have amounted to
external energy by using recovered waste heat more than 12 million rand (1.14 million * An article about AEL was also published in
in the steam from the stacks. euros). 2009 in here No. 25.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 17

 From filthy to fresh

chicago
in
Every day urban areas release up to 250 million cubic metres of
untreated wastewater into our planet’s waterways. In Chicago,
the world’s largest water reclamation plant is cleaning up those
statistics by using technology that transforms billions of litres of
wastewater daily into clean water and agricultural by-products.
TEXT: Erika Gimbel PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES
WASTEWATER TREATMENT
 WASTEWATER TREATMENT
No need for a new The Stickney Water Reclamation Plant
building. Alfa Laval’s processes 2.4 to 5.3 billion litres of
decanters fit right into the wastewater per day.
plant’s exisiting footprint.

The new decanters

from Alfa Laval have
twice the throughput
of the old ones.

T
he Stickney Water Reclamation Plant, situated growing population. Today, those treatment plants need
in Chicago, a major metropolitan area in the continuous updating to keep up with the wastewater 50 % savings
heart of the American Midwest, has the demands of the country’s cities and towns. in power
consumption
distinction of being the largest water reclama-
tion plant in the world. Built in the late 1920s, The Chicago plant sets the standard by processing more More than 90 %
the plant processes 2.4 to 5.3 billion litres of water per day than any other wastewater plant on earth. of solids recovered
wastewater daily for the central part of Chicago and 43 When sewage enters the plant, it begins a 10-hour journey 50 % lower
suburban communities, populated with some 2.5 million that rids it of more 90 percent of contaminants. Several polymer
people. sets of tanks separate heavier solids from lighter ones, and consumption
It’s a big job. Every time someone in that area uses a sink special protozoa are introduced to further separate the
20 MILLION
or flushes the toilet, that water goes through a complex waste from the water. After the protozoa are removed (and US dollars in
cleaning process in order to protect the environment. reused for the next batch of wastewater), the clean water is savings over 20
channelled into the Mississippi river, eventually flowing years
Untreated wastewater is a global environmental issue. into the Gulf of Mexico. Twice the
Urban areas release about 150 to 250 million cubic metres The solid waste spends a much longer time in the plant throughput
of contaminated water per day into our planet’s topsoil, – up to 30 days. Alfa Laval developed two specialized of the old
decanters
rivers, lakes and oceans, according to a report from the decanters that double the plant’s capacity to process the
United Nations Environment Programme, the UN Human wastewater sludge into a biosolid called “cake” that is ideal 3 TIMES LONGER
Settlements Programme and the UN Secretary General’s for agriculture. The cake reintroduces rich nutrients into the lifetime, 20+ years
Advisory Board on Water and Sanitation, in partnership soil and is used to turn barren areas into parks, golf courses compared with
5 to 7 years for an
with the members of UN Water. This sewage causes and farms. alternate proposed
disease, threatens food supplies and creates what are solution
known as “dead zones” in the ocean. The sustainable solution at the Stickney Water Reclama-
In the United States, the federal government first made tion Plant may seem like a drop in the bucket compared
sewage treatment a priority in the 1940s, devoting dollars with all the untreated wastewater in the world, but it’s a
to build water treatment plants to serve the nation’s drop in the right direction.

20 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 A global challenge
Worldwide, many countries are working to
improve levels of wastewater treatment. Progress in China

China is among the many countries

that are working to improve levels
of wastewater treatment.
About 1,600 new waste­water
treatment plants are now under
construction, and expectations are
that by 2015 the country will have
grown its treatment capacity to 79
Baltic Sea
billion tonnes of wastewater, from
64 billion tonnes in 2010.
Central and
East Europe

Western
Europe Caspian Sea

North Mediterranean
Atlantic
UNTREATED
Caribbean

Southern East Asia

Asia
West and
Central Africa

TREATED

“We cut energy use in half”

Q: Why did the Chicago wastewater that has twice the throughput and a
plant need a new solution to treat its higher efficiency than the old ones. We’ll
sludge? be able to use this technology for other
A: The digestion section of the plant, wastewater plants with similar sludge
where our decanters will go, hadn’t types.
been updated in 25 years. They were
actually going to build a new facility Q: What are the environmental ad-
using a different thickening technology, vantages of the Alfa Laval solution?
but the centrifuges we presented fit right A: The biggest impact is on energy use,
into the plant’s existing footprint. Not which we cut in half. The old centrifuges
having to construct a new building with ran some 1,500 to 1,700 litres of sludge
all that infrastructure was a major time per minute, but the Alfa Laval units have
and cost savings right from the start. twice as much throughput.

Q: What were some of the Q: What are the cost savings?

Alfa Laval developed two specialized challenges? A: The energy savings, increased
decanters for the Stickney Waste­ A: Their “mixed sludge” has a lot of throughput and the fact that the plant
heavy grit in it, and as we did some test won’t need a new building, combined
water Reclamation Plant. Chris Fell, runs, we knew we needed to create a with the 20-plus-year lifespan of the
Market Unit Manager at Alfa Laval, custom solution with better efficiency. decanters, add up to about 20 million
describes the solution: In the end, we developed a centrifuge US dollars in savings over 20 years.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 21

 Xxxxx
WASTEWATER TREATMENT

FROM WASTEWATER
Wastewater can be reused for a variety of purposes, depending on the
degree of treatment. In fact, it can even be recycled into safe drinking
water. here gives you a quick overview of how it is done.
text: åsa lovell

The water is clean 2

1 enough to discharge
into waterways.
Tertiary treatment or polish-
ing consists of very fine filters or
systems that remove or kill any
Primary treatment consists of remaining pathogens or harmful
physical treatment of the wastewater. substances. Tertiary treatment
Mechanical screens or fat/oil and sand includes, for example, sand or
separators are often used as well as active coal filters, UV treatment
sometimes primary clarifiers in which to kills bacteria and viruses, or
WASTEWATER solids are settled by gravity. membrane technology (micro
TREATMENT PLANT Secondary treatment can be either
filtration/ultra filtration).

chemical or biological. Most wastewater

treatment plants work with a type of
biological treatment. Depending on the
Domestic, commercial
design, biology can remove organics,
and industrial wastewater
nitrogen and even phosphorus from the
enters a wastewater
soluble part of the wastewater.
treatment plant. Water may be reclaimed
for a variety of non-drinking
purposes, such as industrial
processes or irrigation of
public areas or crops.

SHADES OF WATER
Greywater – Grey refers to the non-sewage kind
of residential or office-sourced water from sinks,
showers and drinking faucets.
99.9 %
of wastewater
Blackwater – Black refers to water from toilets that
is contaminated with sewage. It is also known as is water
brownwater, foul water or sewage.

22 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 TO FRESHWATER
Now the water is clean enough to
be used for sensitive industries such
as pharmaceutical manufacturing
and computer-chip washing. It can The water is used as
also be used as drinking water, tap water or bottled
although this rarely happens. as drinking water.

5
The purified water is added
to groundwater or surface water
­reservoirs where it stays for an
average of six months to be further
purified by natural processes.
Once it is drawn from the ground-
water or reservoir, the ­recycled
water goes through a ­standard
water purification process.
multi-barrier treatment ­processes
consist of steps to ensure sufficient
reduction of soluble materials that need
to be controlled (salts, metals, etc.). This
is typically done by reverse osmosis or
the use of ozone or hydrogen peroxide.
4
Reverse osmosis works by applying
pressure on a membrane so thin that
most molecules larger than water do not
cross it. Reverse osmosis can also be
used in desalination processes.

Recycle
pioneers
Several countries have already
embraced wastewater reuse.
2.5 %
of Singapore’s daily
This is how much they recycle: drinking-water consumption
Israel 70 % in 2011 was NEWater –
Singapore 15 % recycled drinking water
Australia 8 % purified by advanced
USA 5–6 % membrane techniques.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 23

The
whey
of it

E
At its plant set amongst the rolling ach year Scandinavian dairy giant Arla
produces many billions of litres of whey as a
by-product of its cheese-making process. A few
fields outside the small Danish decades ago this greenish liquid – which is
95 percent water and the remainder lactose and
town of Videbæk, dairy producer protein – was viewed as waste and would have been
returned to the farmers to be used as cheap animal feed.
Arla is turning what was once Thanks to membrane technology, this previously
low-value waste product is instead refined by an Arla
­regarded as waste into a highly subsidiary, Arla Food Ingredients, into functional food
additives that are proving to be highly profitable. Used by
refined food ingredient. It is just Arla in other applications, the membranes also have a
number of environmental benefits, such as allowing dairies
one of the environmental benefits to reuse water in their processes and concentrating the
whey before transport thus reducing the number of trucks
Arla gets from using Alfa Laval on the road.
At Arla’s Videbæk plant in Denmark, construction
membrane technology. workers are busy on an extension to the site that will allow
the company to expand by about a third its production of
food ingredients made by filtering whey.
TEXT: DAVID WILES PHOTO: ADAM HAGLUND
“The frustration is that we need more whey than our
own dairies can supply,” says Kristian Albertsen, director of
R&D at Arla Food Ingredients, as he dodges between
construction vehicles on the way to the company’s
research facility. “So we have set up joint ventures in

24 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 95 % water,
5 % lactose and protein.

At its plant in Videbæk Whey, a

in Denmark, Arla Food by-product of
Ingredients makes cheese making,
whey into functional was in the past
food additives. viewed as waste.

Europe and in South America so we can get our hands on Laval and their colleagues come in.”
enough of the raw material.” Alfa Laval is one of the world’s leading suppliers of
Inside the facility new ingredients are being produced in industrial separation technologies. The company supplies a
pilot plants. Albertsen explains that over the past decades wide range of industries with separation equipment based
whey has gone from being waste to feed to food. “Now we on centrifugal and mechanical principles. But there are By using
are going to the next stage,” he says, as he stands surround- many processes in which the substances involved, such as ever more
ed by kilometres of stainless steel pipes and the rich, whey, are too delicate to withstand this treatment, and that
slightly sweet smell of the whey that is gurgling through is where membrane filtration is used. specialized
them. “By using ever more specialized membranes we are membranes
getting more value from the whey.” Comparing the basic principle with the way a coffee filter
works, Albertsen explains that the whey is passed over the we are
The products Arla Food Ingredients makes from the membrane, which is coiled like a roll of wallpaper about a getting
residue of the filtering process today nourish newborn metre long and placed inside a stainless steel tube. The
babies, the sick and the elderly. They also improve the surface of the membrane is covered with microscopic pores more value
consistency of ice cream and the moisture of cakes and give measured in angstroms (1x10-10 m). If you take an ultra-fil- from the
sports drinks the desired protein levels and a transparent tration membrane the size of this magazine page and blow
appearance. it up to the size of Europe, then one pore would be the size
whey.”
The ingredients come in the form of a white powder of a football. Kristian Albertsen,
called whey protein. If you take 100 kilograms of whey, 95 Membrane filtration separates out different components Arla Food
kilograms is water and five kilograms is dry matter. “Of that of the whey on the basis of the molecular size and shape of Ingredients

five kilograms, 85 percent is milk sugar and 12 percent is the micro-particles it contains. The better the filtration, the
protein; the rest is small amounts of fat and minerals,” better the quality and value of the end product. “We can
explains Albertsen. “We want to increase the protein remove the components we don’t want, such as sugar,
content from that 12 percent to 90 percent, and in order to some of the minerals and some of the fats, and then we get
do that we use membrane filtration. That is where Alfa a protein content of up to 90 percent,” says Albertsen.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 25

 Membrane technolgy
has roots in the
atomic energy
industry of the 1960s.

Kristian Albertsen, Alfa Laval’s membranes

director of R&D at are specially designed
Arla Food Ingredients. for different applications.

We rely on good membrane In addition, all of Arla’s cheese factories use standard
membranes for concentrating the whey prior to transport
techno­logies, and that is why we to Videbæk. “They concentrate the whey up 45 times
have teamed up with Alfa Laval.” before transporting it here,” says Albertsen. “So instead of
sending 45 trucks with whey from Sweden or Germany or
Some ingredients may pass through as many as 20 elsewhere in Denmark, you only need one. And that of
4.8 billion membrane plants and are then heat-treated or homoge- course has big environmental and cost benefits.”
litres of low-value
waste product are nized and dried into powders before they are ready to be
refined into 130,000 used for their nutritional or functional properties. “We rely While many dairies are struggling to stay profitable,
tonnes of on good membrane technologies, and that is why we have Arla and others like it, with their own ingredients business,
high-value food
teamed up with Alfa Laval,” he says. “There are a lot of are faring considerably better.
ingredients.
parameters, such as performance, price and cost of “Over the past couple of years [the ingredients business]
One truck cleaning, but on total evaluation Alfa Laval membranes are has been an increasingly good business to be in, due to a
can transport the among the best.” continually increasing demand for dairy products and
whey (compared to
the 45 used earlier especially the dried products that can be transported over
for the equivalent Alfa Laval has been supplying Arla Food Ingredients with big distances,” says Albertsen. “In future there will be
amount) because membranes since the 1980s, but in 2011 the mutual greater demand for more specialized membranes to
the whey is
concentrated
business relations were taken to another level when the two separate more proteins, fats or sugar types to meet market
before transport. companies entered into a development cooperation in demands.”
  which Arla Food Ingredients receives membranes custom-
1,500 tonnes made to its specifications and Alfa Laval gets its latest
is the amount of
water Arla is able membranes tested in real-life industrial situations.
Arla Food Ingredients
to save per day by “We got into a close dialogue with a membrane producer
cleaning water with that can translate our needs and make a membrane
membranes and
then reusing it. specially designed for particular applications,” says • A fully owned subsidiary of Arla Foods
Albertsen. • Specialized in the development and application of
Besides turning what was once waste into a highly functional and nutritional ingredients derived from
refined product, Alfa Laval’s membranes also provide Arla natural milk whey
with environmental benefits that contribute to the group’s • Headquartered in Videbæk, Denmark, with advanced
sustainability goals, such as reducing water and energy application centres in Denmark and Argentina
consumption by 3 percent. At Arla plants, membranes are • 600 employees in 20 countries, of which 50 are in
used to clean water used in assorted processes, reducing R&D in Videbæk
both the need for freshwater and the amount of waste • Product applications include bakery, dairy, meat, ready
generated. The matter left over after filtration can then be meals, clinical nutrition, functional foods and sports
passed on to an energy company to be used as a feedstock nutrition.
for renewable biogas.

26 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 INNOVATION NOx
1
NOx reduction NOX – Toxic combination
(exhaust gas
recirculation)
30 – 40 % • In January 2016, all new ships will need
of the gas is to meet the standards of Tier III, a reduc-
channelled tion of 80 percent compared with Tier I
back standards, for operation within areas de-
signated as NOx Emission Control Areas.
• Emission Control Areas include the Baltic
Sea, the North Sea, most of the US and
Canadian coastlines, and US Caribbean
coastlines.
SCRUBBER • Alfa Laval PureNOx collects and dischar-
CLEANING ges wash water solids as concentrated
sludge into the sludge tank, while clea-
ning the scrubber water for overboard
discharge.
2 • Using the EGR with PureNOx ­system
­effectively removes soot and thus
Cooling and ­protects the engine.
DIESEL cleaning 3
process
ENGINE Cleaner
exhaust gas GAS
overboard WATER

Say no to NOx
Shipping is one of the largest contributors of emissions of nitrogen oxides into the
atmosphere, which is why in the late 1990s the International Maritime Organization
set up emissions limits. Now even stricter limitations are on the horizon. TEXT: Risto Pakarinen
The shipping industry is facing tougher cargo vessels, is exhaust gas recirculation, exhaust gas. The PureNOx effectively cleans
environmental legislation aimed at reducing or EGR. It is a proven solution originally used scrubber wash water, removing impurities
the industry’s negative impact on the envi- in the reduction of emissions in trucks. that may interfere with the process and fulfill-
ronment. In addition to regulations concern- The EGR system includes a wet scrubber ing IMO water purity requirements to enable
ing ballast and bilge water, the International (wet gas cleaner) that is integrated into the discharge into the sea.
Maritime Organization (IMO) is enforcing new engine, a cooler and water mist catcher, a Unlike SOx emissions, NOx emissions
limits for emissions of sulphur oxides (SOx) blower, a control system and the Alfa Laval are not dependent on fuel quality. Instead it
and nitrogen oxides (NOx) into the air. PureNOx water treatment system. is the combustion process that affects the
In 2016, Tier III regulations on emissions amount of NOx emissions produced. The
of NOx will go into effect, reducing emis- The Alfa Laval PureNOx water treatment EGR system helps protect the engine and
sions to 20 percent of the Tier I levels that system recirculates up to 40 percent of the ensures optimal engine performance. It is
the IMO defined in 1997. exhaust gas into the charge air chamber, also integrated with the engine (no cata-
The race to accommodate these new lowering the oxygen content in the cylinder lysts are added), so it takes up little space
restrictions is on, with two competing tech- and increasing the specific heat capacity. onboard.
nological solutions. This reduces the combustion temperatures
One uses a catalyst that, with the help of and suppresses the formation of NOx emis- The solution will make its commercial
urea, breaks down NOx into nitrogen and sions. debut later this year onboard a Maersk Line
water. The other, which Alfa Laval is devel- To prolong the service life of engine com- vessel with a two-stroke engine. Installation
oping with MAN Diesel, the world’s largest ponents, a wet scrubber circulates water to is scheduled for the autumn of 2012, with
manufacturer of diesel engines for large remove soot and SOx from the recirculated ship delivery in 2013.

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 27

Alfa Laval PRESENTS LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT
Xxxxx

Life-cycle assessment of new products is part

of Alfa Laval’s green agenda. The process not only
reduces the company’s environmental impact, but it
also meets market demands and creates customer value.

Valuable assessments
all new products that Alfa Laval launches minimizing the use of electrical power to run an example. “If we go back a few years, the
have one thing in common: They have the the products and the need for cleaning and dairy industry used five to 10 litres of water
same or a lower life-cycle environmental use of chemicals, while the potential for plate to produce one litre of milk,” he says. “Now
impact than the products they replace. It’s heat exchangers lies mainly in reducing the the target is to use less than a litre of water
the result of working with life-cycle assess- amount of plate material used in the design. per litre of milk. We believe that in future
ment as an integral part of the R&D process, the aim will be to use no more than
which goes hand in hand with market Currently Alfa Laval launches 35 to 40 0.2 litres of water for each litre of milk.
expectations. new and improved products each year, but Our task is to continue improving our
“When we look at our customers’ future there is always more to be done, Sonder- technology to meet such customer require-
needs, they are pointing us in this direction,” gaard explains. He uses the dairy industry as ments.”
says Bjarne Sondergaard, manager for
Product Centre Fluid Handling at Alfa Laval.
“Most of them have internal targets of alfa laval products for greener agenda
reducing their energy and water footprints
and want to get the most out of their raw
materials. So by following the demands we ALDEC G3 decanter
have from the market, we can actually meet
The ALDEC G3 was launched in 2010 as an alternative to ALDEC G2 range for sludge
the targets we have set for ourselves.” dewatering in municipal wastewater treatment plants.
Alfa Laval uses ReCiPe methodology to Main improvement area: Reduction of energy consumption and improved capacity.
make the assessments, which transforms the Reduction in energy footprint: 30-40 %
long list of life-cycle inventory results into a Capacity improvement: 10 %
limited number of indicator scores.

Since starting with life cycle assessments in

2008, Alfa Laval has on average obtained a 20
percent environmental improvement of new
products. The main improvements involve
Alfa Laval using less material in the product CB112 brazed
design, making the products more energy heat exchanger LKH-85 centrifugal pump
efficient to operate and minimizing the need The CB112 was The LKH-85 pump was launched in
for cleaning, thereby reducing water launched in 2011, 2009 replacing the LKH-80 pump.
consumption and the use of chemicals. replacing the CB76 for The main applications for the LKH-85
“In cases where our products perform the applications such as are large filtration systems within the
same duty with less energy, there is a clear HVAC or industrial heat- food industry.
benefit for the customer,” says Sondergaard. ing/cooling, condensing, Main improvement area: Higher
“The same goes for the cleanability, which tap water, oil cooling, air efficiency and less material – the LKH-
reduces water consumption and use of dryer and solar heating. 85 with a 110kW motor replaces two
chemicals. Regarding the cut-down on Main improvement LKH-80 pumps with 75kW motors.
material, there is also a direct value for the area: Less material used Reduction in energy footprint: 17 %
customers as they have to install the in the design. Improvement in environmental
products, handle them and service them. Reduction in impact: 16 %
The lighter they are, the easier they are to material: 30 %
handle.” Improvement in
environmental
He says the product improvement possibil-
impact: 28 %
ities vary with different product groups. For
pumps and high-speed separators, for
example, the main improvements concern

28 | here november
xxxxx 20112011
2012
  an international magazine from alfa laval
 Higher and higher Xxxxx
seoul, korea, is home to the Lotte World source, usually a chiller, transfers the cold
Tower, a 555-metre skyscraper due to be water from the ice to the building’s internal
completed in 2015. It will be the third-tallest cooling system through a plate heat ex-
building in the world after Dubai’s Burj changer. The ability to store ice means that a
Khalifa and the Shanghai Tower scheduled smaller chiller can be used. “As a result, the
for completion in 2014. Lotte World Tower initial cost of cooling equipment can be
has a cone-shaped glass exterior inspired by reduced considerably,” says ChangSun Han,
Korean ceramics. Inside the building will be ECF Sales Manager, Alfa Laval, Korea.
shops, offices, residences and a luxury hotel. “Additionally, cooling energy can be
Eco-friendly technology and optimized purchased during the night or in off-peak
energy are important goals for the Lotte hours.” With electricity costing about 75
Corporation. To that end the building will percent less at night, this amounts to
make use of a number of renewable technol- substantial savings.
ogies, including solar and geothermal power,
as it aims for LEED Gold-level certification, a Alfa Laval has also installed a heat pump
validation of the project’s green features. system in the building to transfer geothermal
Some 2,080 solar modules will be installed energy and provide either heating or
on the building’s glass exterior to generate cooling, depending on the requirements. In
electrical power. The solar modules are this project, the building uses water from the
expected to cut back on carbon dioxide by Han River for the heat pump system, feeding
62 tonnes per year. it to the condenser for cooler temperatures in
The eco-friendly Alfa Laval is contributing to the building’s the summer and to the evaporator for
Lotte World energy efficiency with an innovative ice warmer temperatures in the winter.
Tower is
storage cooling system. The ice storage Using these geothermal and water-source
designed by
Kohn Pedersen system will help the building maintain a heat pumps can reduce energy consumption
Fox Associates comfortable indoor temperature year round. by about 30 percent compared with existing
and Baum Ice is accumulated, stored and thawed in a systems.
Architects,
Engineers & tank to be used when needed. A cooling TEXT: cari simmons
Consultants Co.
XX XXX XX

www.alfalaval.com/here  here here

november 2011 | 29
xxxxx 2012
 Soft-hearted
steel giant

In celebration of 50
years of business, Tata
Steel created the
Jubilee Park in the
heart of Jamshedpur
as a gift to its
residents.

With society’s overall need to Orporate social

responsibility, or CSR,
1907. In many ways they’re still
buzzwords today, but Tata Steel and the
become more sustainable, has been a fundamental Tata Group have been practising the
focus for Tata Steel since concepts for more than 100 years
corporate social responsibility the company’s start in now.”

is an ever-stronger part of the 1907. A world-leading steel manufac-

turer and the flagship company of Tata emphasized employee welfare
global business landscape. India’s Tata Group, Tata Steel produces initiatives and the importance of
hot and cold rolled coils and sheets, creating a well-planned city, replete
India’s Tata Steel has been galvanized sheets, tubes, wire rods, with areas earmarked for worship,

leading the way for more construction rebar and bearings at its
plant outside Jamshedpur, in eastern
sports and recreation. Though only a
small fraction of the city’s 1.3 million
than a century. India. Company founder Jamsetji Tata residents today are Tata Steel employ-
developed the city in tandem with the ees, the company still looks after the
Text: Simon de Trey-White, Eric Gourley company as a place for the company’s civic amenities of a major part of
photo: Simon de Trey-White workers to live. Jamshedpur. It remains India’s only
“Sustaining our communities is even city to be managed by a private entity.
* An article about Tata Steel was also more important to us today because it’s “Tata Steel provides all public
published in here No. 25, 2009.
part of the DNA of the company,” says services to the inhabitants – water and
Biren Ramesh Bhuta, chief of Corpo- power distribution, roads, parks and
rate Sustainability Services at Tata gardens, health care and malls,” Bhuta
Steel. “Nobody knew what CSR and says. “All these things are managed by
sustainable development were back in the corporation. It’s the only place in

30 | here november 2012  an international magazine from alfa laval

 A statue of Tata Steel’s founder,
Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata,
welcomes visitors at the
main entrance gate to the
company’s largest
steel plant.

exchangers, centrifuges and service to

It’s incumbent on a corporation to ensure
Tata Steel’s plant. Tata Steel
you minimize the impact of your industry Alfa Laval was originally selected as is among the
and that your community benefits from your the best supplier of the specialist
world’s top 10
steelmakers, with
presence.” Biren Ramesh Bhuta, Tata Steel equipment Tata Steel needed to meet more than 80,000
employees across
its requirements, but the partnership
five continents
the country where you can drink water “The community is a crucial has flourished over the years in large
straight from the tap. It’s unique.” stakeholder in our business, and we part due to shared values in terms of Was named one of
the 2012 “World’s
When more than 600 million people want to operate in a peaceful, conge- social responsibility. Most Ethical (WME)
were without power during the July nial environment that is conducive to “Apart from its core operations, what Companies” by
Ethisphere Institute
2012 India blackout, Jamshedpur our growth,” he continues. “We defines Tata Steel best is its sustainabil-
remained unaffected. recognize that we leave a footprint on ity quotient,” says Amitava Bakshi, Attained first
“We didn’t even know, until we communities and on the environment. chief of Tata Steel’s Procurement SA8000 accredita-
tion for improving
watched it on TV, that the entire north It’s incumbent on us as a corporation Division. “The company is constantly global working
and east of India were in a blackout,” to ensure we minimize the impact of trying to align itself with the best conditions in 2005
Bhuta says. “Providing power, water our industry and that our community practices in global standards. As such, Introduced the
and the other services is just part of our benefits from our presence.” Tata Steel encourages its vendors to eight-hour work day
obligation as a company focused on have an equal standing in terms of in 1912 and
maternity leave in
sustaining its communities. It gives us Alfa Laval has operated a local sales employee welfare, commitment to the 1920 – years before
a social licence to operate. Our CSR and service office in Jamshedpur since community, ethics and environment. such concepts
became law.
stance stems from a philosophical 1992, but its relationship with Tata Alfa Laval is one of our vendors, and
viewpoint that we need to do good for Steel extends even further back. Today Tata Steel is proud to be associated with
society. Alfa Laval provides tailor-made heat such a committed company.”

www.alfalaval.com/here  here november 2012 | 31

interview scania
Xxxxx

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november   an international magazine from alfa laval
 Xxxxx

Low-pressure cleaning
In July 2012 Alfdex, 50 percent owned by How is Alfdex better than other available solutions?
“Compared with filters, Alfdex is far superior. Filters have to be
Alfa Laval, produced its one-millionth Alfdex replaced and disposed of, while Alfdex lasts the lifetime of the engine
oil mist separator. The separator cleans without service or maintenance. With Alfdex we can also keep the
crankcase pressure below the atmospheric pressure to minimize leak-
crankcase gases in heavy vehicles. Swedish age and pressure inside the engine. With filter systems that are avail-
able on the market today, you always get high crankcase pressure.”
truck manufacturer Scania has been using the
In 2014 the new and tougher Euro 6 regulations will come into
Alfdex system in its trucks since 2005, when effect. How is Scania dealing with them?
it first came out. TEXT: åsa lovell PHOTO: simon paulin “We have already launched our Scania Euro 6 standard, which is
compliant with the new regulations, and Alfdex is part of that offer-
ing. Since Euro 6 regulates the total number of emissions from both
Four questions for Håkan Petersen , head of Lubrication System, exhaust gases and crankcase gases, we have not had to change the
Engine Development, at Scania. crankcase solution to comply with the new regulations.”
How important is Alfdex to Scania? When looking ahead, is the next-generation Alfdex a part of your
“We were very much involved in the development of Alfdex system agenda?
back in the early 2000s, working in close collaboration with engi- “Now that Scania Euro 6 is in place, we have to start working toward the
neers from Alfa Laval and Haldex, which later jointly formed the next step, offering even cleaner engines and fewer emissions. Naturally,
company Alfdex. Today the Alfdex oil mist separator is the most ad- this includes reviewing our crankcase cleaning system. There are several
vanced technology for cleaning crankcase gases that we can offer our ways to go, but the next-generation Alfdex is certainly one possibility.
customers who want to comply with emission standards. Customer Even if we succeed in cleaning crankcase gases better, with a lower impact
requirements differ depending on regulations and requirements, but on the environment, we hope to see further improvements concern-
on the European market Alfdex has more or less become standard ing simplicity and robustness, as Scania will grow in countries outside
equipment.” Europe where truck operations are tougher.”

Improved generation • It can handle up to • The cleaned gas under • The separator is normally driven
A new generation of Alfdex oil mist separators meets three times as much normal driving conditions hydra­ulically by the engine lube oil
the increased demands from Euro 6 and extends bey- blow-by gas, 50 to 600 is close to 100 % oil-free, system, but another option is an elec-
ond EPA 10. There are several improvements compared litres a minute, depen- representing up to four tric brushless motor with significantly
with the first generation of separators from Alfdex: ding on the version. times better cleaning. lower energy consumption.
www.alfalaval.com/here  here xxxxx 2012 | 33
Sustainability
to the core
Reducing its own emissions and those of its customers, having zero tolerance
for corruption, conducting business transparently and respecting workers’
rights: Such business practices put Alfa Laval at the forefront of sustainable
development. TEXT: David Wiles PHOTO: istock photo

A
lfa laval has strong commit- Business Integrity, Environment and While Alfa Laval has made great strides in
ment to sustainable develop- Transparency – form the basis for its work its sustainability efforts, Ford recognizes that
ment both externally and on sustainability. First published in 2003 it is never-ending work. “The more we work
internally. Through its and presently under revision, the principles on it, the more humble we get,” he says. “The
products it helps industries govern the company’s approach to business more we understand, the more opportunities
improve their energy efficiency, reduce within broader society. we find. But we know that we are making
their emissions and reduce their use of “We want to be a company operating with progress, not least because when I visit Alfa
natural resources, and in its own operations strong ethical principles – a company where Laval sites around the world, colleagues come
it works to consistently reduce its energy employees are proud to work and whose up to me and say that they have noticed a
and chemical use and supports the rights values extend throughout the supply chain,” difference. For me that is just as valuable as
of its workers. says David Ford, Head of Corporate Social the management metrics of tonnes of carbon
Alfa Laval’s business principles – Social, Responsibility at Alfa Laval. dioxide per million working hours.”

96%
IMPROVEMENTS IN NUMBERS:

CHEMICAL USE
Alfa Laval reduced its use
of blacklisted chemicals
(those with a high risk
to health or the environ-
ment) with 96 % at its
manufacturing sites from
2006 to 2011.

10%
A change in Alfa
Laval’s company
car policy continues
to cut emissions.
25 %
Average emission
per car is down
10 % since 2006.
2007–2011
Energy efficiency at Alfa Laval
production sites improved by
more than 25 % in 2007–2011.

34 | here
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november   an international
an international magazinefrom
magazine fromalfa
alfa laval
laval
 Alfa Laval’s four
business principles
Alfa Laval´s business principles form the basis for the company’s work on sustainability.
They are based on the OECD’s Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises,
the UN Global Compactand the core International Labour Organization Conventions.

1 social: respect for

human rights is
fundamental 3 transparency: the company´s
commitment to open
dialogue builds trust

2 business integrity:
high ethical standards
guide our conduct 4 environment: optimizing the
use of natural resources
is alfa laval’s business

10,000 13 %
MWh per year
Alfa Laval’s total energy savings after completing 54 energy-saving
projects in 34 factories 2008–2011. This equals approximately the
energy consumption in the US for a 24-hour period.

2007–2011

In 2011 Alfa Laval used 13 %

less water in production pro-
cesses in its current 34 facto-
ries (427,376 cubic metres) than
it did in the 20 factories it had in
2006 (489,616 cubic metres).

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www.alfalaval.com/here 2011 | 35
here xxxxx 2012
here november
Ehr e n s t råhl e B B D O

Fruitful growth

By the middle of this century, the population of our planet will have increased by 50%, from more
than 6 billion to nearly 10 billion people. A growing challenge is to provide nutritious food for every-
one. Take India, for example – a fertile area larger than the entire Nordic region. Here, fruit and veg-
etables have traditionally been processed by hand. Now change is taking place on a huge scale.
Modern plants are being built that will treat raw materials more efficiently. It’s about heating, cooling,
sterilising, extracting, transporting, separating and concentrating food products. These processes
represent the very heart of Alfa Laval’s know-how. Today only 2% of India’s produce is treated in
this way. In less than ten years, this figure will exceed 15%. Talk about growth.