Food & Beverage

In the Food & Beverage industry there main cryogenic application is Nitrogen Dosing for the beverage industry.

Nitrogen Dosing
Water, softdrink and juice packaging worldwide has shifted from heavy glass towards ultra light plastic bottles, cardboard packages and aluminum cans. This requires drastic measures to prevent the packages from collapsing during transport when packed trays are placed on top of each other. Their incoherent fragile structure can easily be made stronger by gently pressurizing the bottles/cans.

The perfect way to pressurize is by adding a drop of liquid nitrogen in the package. The rapidly evaporating liquid nitrogen will remove the oxygen from the package. Immediately afterwards, before all liquid nitrogen has evaporated, the package is closed. The remaining and still evaporating liquid nitrogen pressurizes the package. The thin package thus becomes a very strong structure resisting impacts and loads.

By applying this dosing technology the beverage industry has been able to save a huge amount of expenditures on packaging by making the packaging thinner. A positive side effect of nitrogen dosing is that removing the oxygen from the bottle/can also improves the shelve time and enhances the quality of the product. Bottling with dosing requires an uninterrupted supply of liquid nitrogen. Not having liquid nitrogen available means interruption of production with possibly long start-up times.

Stirling cooperates with leading OEM manufacturers of liquid dosing systems that are capable of injecting the liquid nitrogen drops into the packages at high speed. The liquid nitrogen plant will be integrated into the fully automatic dosing system from the manufacturers’ plant.

Liquid Oxygen for Fish Farming
Aquaculture is one of the fastest-growing sectors in global food production, driven by the increasing demand for high-quality protein sources. Oxygen plays a fundamental role in modern fish farming by supporting fish health (reduction in mortality rate), optimizing growth rates, and enhancing the overall efficiency and sustainability of farming operations.

The Stirling StirLOX system provides an on-site uninterrupted autonomous production and supply of liquid oxygen (standard 93-95%, higher purity available on request). There are different setups available:
• Oxygen generators provide a continuous supply of oxygen gas to the fish. The StirLOX system fills liquid oxygen into a buffer tank, that will be evaporated in case of power cuts, emergencies, maintenance or peak demand
• When using LOX pods, the StirLOX system ensures a continuous production and supply of liquid oxygen to the buffer tank. The pods can be filled from this tank for transporting to the marine-based aquaculture cages
• Combinations of the above setups are available

These setups provide lower cost of ownership, eliminate reliance on external LOX suppliers, and give full control over your oxygen-dependent aquaculture operations.

Food Freezing
Fresh Food is being frozen to cryogenic temperatures in order to preserve the quality as if it remains fresh. The texture, flavour and fragrance of the food is maintained.

There are two main technologies to freeze food: Freeze tunnels and Spiral freezers. To quickly freeze the food (as a whole or cut or sliced parts), it is handled on mesh transportation belts whilst liquid nitrogen is dispersed and blown via fans under pressure in the tunnel/spiral. The liquid nitrogen becomes gaseous almost instantly and is easy to handle.

Product specifications

Products

References

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