Spirax Sarco maintains flavour at Lionel Hitchen

Lionel Hitchen, a manufacturer of natural extracts, oils and flavours for the food industry, has standardised on pneumatic controls from Spirax Sarco to ensure product consistency.

The chosen system controls the temperature on the company's resin blending vessels, which are heated using steam jackets.

The system relies on a Spirax Sarco KE71 control valve fitted with a PN6000 actuator and a PP5 pneumatic-valve positioner.

A temperature probe inside the vessel feeds data back to a PN600 pneumatic controller that oversees the process.

Pneumatic controls suitable for use in Atex-zoned areas were chosen, because of the potentially hazardous atmosphere in some parts of the plant.

Chris Dimmick, engineering manager for Lionel Hitchen, said: 'There's no electrical signal so there's no risk of ignition.

Many of the flavour ingredients made by Lionel Hitchen are expensive: a typical herb-extract may cost anywhere from GBP50 to 200 a kilogram, with some of the more exotic extracts costing many times more.

The company blends and standardises batches of these extracts in vessels with capacities of 600 or 1200 litres.

Dimmick said precise temperature-control is essential throughout the process.

'When we produce an oleoresin we need to standardise it by blending it with other ingredients and heating it to a specified temperature.

'Every product is different with a different viscosity, but we can't burn it or we will spoil the flavour.

'Whatever the product, we have to be able to set the process at a particular temperature to suit.

In addition to its resin-blending vessels, Lionel Hitchen has also adopted the same Spirax Sarco equipment to control the cooling-water flowing through some of its distillation plants, bringing the total number of temperature-control systems currently in use on the site to 10.

Back to top