Starch, Pectin, Functional Food and Food Conglutination
Starch is a natural, environmental compatible and very versatile ingredient group playing an increasingly important role in the modern food industry.
Starch is used in its natural form, but to a greater extent in its various modified forms, for example:
- Malto dextrin
- Glucose syrups
Starch is a mixture of two glucose polymers which are initially enclosed within a semicrystalline granule formed inside starch-synthesising plant organelles.
Environmental requirements and increasing demands from the starch industry has led Niro to develop state-of-the-art processes with minimum energy consumption, minimized effluents loads and reduced fresh water consumption. All this with optimal raw material utilisation for recovering starch from, for example:
- Corn
- Sorgum
- Wheat
- Tapioca Rice
- Etc.
Starch processing implies hydrolysis, i.e. partial or total splitting of the long starch molecules into smaller fragments, chemical or enzymatic processes, refining concentration and other unit operations for obtaining the required sweetener. Both processes and equipment are designed with respect to process type, raw material and final product specification.
More than 40 years' experience in world-wide industrial process development, design, construction and maintenance of production facilities enables Niro together with other GEA sister companies, to provide sweetener technology and equipment, tailor-made for any specific need including:
- Evaporation / Concentration
- Crystallisation
- Isomerization
- Fractionation
- Hydrogenation
- Fluid bed drying
- Spray drying
Spray drying is Niro's core business, and perhaps the most important continuous industrial drying technique for converting liquid sweetener formulations into powders.
The feed is atomized into droplets that are directed into a controlled flow of hot air. Particles are formed as moisture evaporates from each droplet, and the dried product is discharged from the drying chamber.
TYPES OF SWEETENER
Depending on type of sweetener, various spray dryer designs are selected.
- For low thermoplastic and low hydroscopic sweeteners, conventional spray dryer FSDTM designs are recommended
- For more thermoplastic and hydroscopic sweeteners like sorbitol and total sugar, the FILTERMAT® spray dryer with integrated belt is recommended