Sternchemie adds fluidized-bed pilot plant to accelerate instant product development

Sternchemie has expanded its application and development capabilities with a new fluidized-bed agglomerator designed to help food and nutrition manufacturers test instant products under production-like conditions before moving to full-scale manufacturing.

• Sternchemie has installed a fluidized-bed agglomerator at its Stern-Technology Center in Ahrensburg, Germany, for instantization and lecithin-coating trials.
• The pilot system allows lecithin blends, dosages and processing parameters to be tested under conditions designed to replicate industrial production.
• Sternchemie expects the capability to reduce development lead times and limit the need for costly trials on customers' commercial production lines.

Installed at the Stern-Technology Center in Ahrensburg, near Hamburg, the pilot system enables the company to reproduce customer applications under controlled conditions while testing different lecithin formulations and processing parameters.

The investment is intended to shorten development cycles and give manufacturers a more direct route from laboratory testing to industrial implementation.

“With the fluidised bed agglomerator at our Stern-Technology Center in Ahrensburg, we can replicate customer applications under realistic production conditions,” said Daniel Kandt, Technical Product Manager Instant at Sternchemie. “This brings us valid results faster, and solutions that are an exact fit. For our customers that means more certainty, higher speed, and at the same time the ability to address new areas of innovation.”

Fluidized-bed technology is widely used in the production of milk powders and other instant products. Powders are suspended in a stream of air before being treated with lecithin mixtures, creating close contact between the liquid and particle surfaces and allowing a consistent lecithin coating to be applied.

Lecithin can be used to modify characteristics including wetting and dispersibility, making the coating process particularly relevant for powdered products intended to dissolve or disperse rapidly.

Sternchemie has designed the new pilot capability to replicate industrial conditions closely enough for results to be transferred to customers' manufacturing processes.

Previously, some development work required external facilities, introducing potential capacity constraints and longer lead times. Bringing the capability into the company's own technology center allows Sternchemie to test multiple lecithin blends, dosage levels and process settings more rapidly.

The resulting data can then be used to refine recommendations before customers conduct industrial-scale trials.

For manufacturers, Sternchemie expects that approach to reduce the number of trials required on commercial production equipment, where experimentation can consume production time, ingredients and other resources.

The system also allows the company to investigate individual characteristics of instant powders, including solubility, wetting behavior and foaming. These properties can vary considerably depending on the raw material, formulation, production process and instantization method.

By altering processing conditions and formulations at pilot scale, Sternchemie can examine these variables systematically and identify combinations suited to individual applications.

The equipment will also support internal R&D beyond specific customer projects.

“Thanks to the system we can work more on issues like foam control, functional improvement, and alternative raw materials,” Kandt said. “This expands our technological expertise and at the same time creates the basis for future product innovation.”

Sternchemie also plans to use the facility to investigate the application of surface-active liquids to powdered products more broadly. According to the company, such treatments have the potential to influence characteristics including stability, processability and digestibility.

The agglomerator's location within the Stern-Technology Center will make the capability available for development work across the wider Stern-Wywiol Gruppe, which comprises 14 sister companies and has access to more than 150 R&D specialists.

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