Leading Indian fishery, Ananda Seafoods, improved productivity by 75% with new defrost system applying the Danfoss ICF valve station.
The seafood processing plant, Ananda Sea Foods in India is a global supplier of frozen shrimps. When investing in a new refrigeration solution the demands from Ananda Sea Foods were clear: save energy, save water for defrost, increase uptime and save time for maintenance.
The seafood processing plant, Ananda Sea Foods in Bhimavaram in the Andhra Pradesh province of India is a global supplier of shrimps in frozen blocks or individually frozen shrimps. The factory prides itself in using modern technology for processing of the sea food, and a few years ago the time had come to retrofit the refrigeration system to live up to increasing demands for food quality and food safety.
The demands from the customer were clear: save energy, save water for defrost, increase uptime and save time for manual maintenance of the system. As part of the retrofit, the hot gas defrost system was equipped with Danfoss ICF valve stations and two step solenoid valves, which has led to significant reductions in defrost time per batch of up to 45 minutes. All in all the retrofit resulted in 75 % productivity improvements compared to the traditional water defrost systems applied before.
The customer has since commissioning of the new defrost equipment expressed great satisfaction with the hot gas defrost solution achieved by the ICF solution and has already ordered the next defrost solution from Danfoss.
The seafood processing plant Ananda Sea Foods in Bhimavaram, Andhra Pradesh, was founded in 1994. The main product of the company is shrimps in blocks or individually frozen, exported to a large number of countries across the globe. Over the years, ever growing requirements to product quality and changing technical standards, as well as changes in market demand, forced the company to constantly modernize their equipment and facilities.
The freezing unit of the plant comprises three plate freezers with a combined freezing capacity of 750 kg/hr and a straight-belt quick freezer with a capacity of 500 kg/hr. Furthermore, a 30 MT/day flake ice machine produces the ice for the in-process requirements. The temperature across the unit is minus 40 °C and the plant uses ammonia as refrigerant.
For defrosting of the evaporators, the Ananda plant used to apply a water defrosting system, and the process of defrosting took about one and a half hours, using massive amounts of water to melt the ice on the evaporator coils. To save energy and water for defrost and to increase uptime and reduce manual maintenance, the plant decided to invest in a new hot gas defrost system.
The new hot gas defrost system was specified and delivered by Danfoss and the benefits of the new system were soon evident. First of all, the evaporator coils are extremely clean after the defrosting, which saves a lot of energy due to effective heat transfer and efficient cooling. Using PMLX solenoid valves led to reduced shock on the system, increasing service life of components and piping. Furthermore, the valves enhance the safety of the system without affecting the defrost process.
The new defrost system has reduced the water consumption significantly. Also, the required manual labor has been cut down to a minimum, since most of the defrosting process is now performed automatically. The use of the Danfoss ICF valve station instead of conventional individual controls meant short installation time and only few welds to increase the safety at the plant.
