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CIP heat exchanger cleaning

Circulation puts the unit back in service fastest and tells you nothing about the state of the plates. Send the unit details and the deposit, and a specialist will say whether circulation will shift it.

  • Unit staysOn the pipework, connected
  • Typical durationA single shift, often overnight
  • ProvesRecovered duty. Not condition

Submit a cleaning request

Four steps: unit, deposit, postcode, contact details.

  1. 01Unit
  2. 02Situation
  3. 03Site
  4. 04Contact
What needs cleaning?

01The method

Four variables decide whether a circulation clean works, and strength is the least of them

CIP heat exchanger cleaning circulates a cleaning solution through the unit using its existing connections, so nothing is dismantled and nothing leaves site. It is the fastest and cheapest route back to duty and it is the right first attempt on most units. What it cannot do is tell you anything about the surfaces it has just cleaned, and that limitation is the whole basis for deciding between this and stripping the unit.

01

Temperature and contact time do more than concentration does

Most failed CIP attempts are run cold, run briefly, or both. Reaction rates rise steeply with temperature and most cleaning chemistry is formulated for a specific range, so a solution circulated at ambient can be doing a fraction of the work the same solution does hot. Contact time matters just as much: a deposit that dissolves in ninety minutes will not dissolve in twenty, and doubling the concentration does not compensate. Increasing strength instead of temperature and time is the usual mistake, and it costs gaskets, not deposit.

Gets it wrong
Cold, brief, and stronger to compensate
Gets it right
At temperature, for the full contact time, at normal concentration
Cost of the error
Gasket and passive layer damage, with the deposit still in place
02

Flow reversal reaches the half of the deposit the first direction missed

Fouling is not laid down evenly. Deposit builds preferentially at the inlet on some duties and at the outlet on others, and it forms an asymmetric face that a single flow direction attacks from one side only. Reversing the flow part way through the cycle presents the solution to the other face and to the lee side of anything lodged in a port. On plate packs particularly, reversal is often the difference between a cycle that works and one that plateaus.

Why
Deposits are asymmetric; one flow direction attacks one face
When
Part way through the cycle and not as an afterthought at the end
Most useful on
Plate packs and anything with ports that trap solids
03

Two-stage cycles exist because one chemistry cannot remove two deposits

Where a deposit is both organic and mineral, protein with beerstone, protein with calcium phosphate, oil with scale, each component shields the other. Caustic removes the organic and leaves the mineral; acid removes the mineral and leaves the organic. Running them in sequence with a rinse between removes both, and running either alone stalls no matter how hot or how long. Recognising an interlocked deposit is what converts a cycle that is not working into one that does.

Sequence
Caustic, rinse, acid, rinse. The rinse between is not optional
After acid
Passivation on stainless, or the surface refouls faster than before
Applies to
Food, dairy, brewing, and any duty with both organic and mineral fouling

02When it is the right call

Circulation is the right first attempt and the wrong final answer

The limit is not what CIP removes. It is what it cannot tell you afterwards.

  • Right whenThe deposit is soluble, the unit is accessible on its connections, and downtime matters more than certainty about condition.
  • Right whenThe unit has a standby or a bypass, so the clean costs no production at all.
  • Wrong whenPlate or tube condition is in question, or a cross-leak is suspected. Circulation cannot find a crack.
  • Wrong whenThe deposit is baked, fibrous or particulate. Nothing dissolves what was never in solution.
  • Wrong whenGaskets are near end of life. Hot chemical cycling will finish them, and the pack has to be opened anyway.

03What happens next

Four steps take a fouled unit from enquiry to a tested return

The enquiry goes straight to a contractor who cleans that unit type. There is no qualifying call in between.

  1. You send the unit details, the deposit and the postcode.

  2. The enquiry goes to a specialist set up for that unit type and that fouling.

  3. They come back with method, timescale and price.

  4. The clean is carried out in place or off site, and the unit is tested before it goes back.

04Questions

Access, deposit solubility and gasket condition decide whether circulation is enough

What does a CIP rig consist of?

A tank, a pump, a heater and hoses, connected to the unit's existing connections. On larger duties the pump and tank are trailer-mounted; on small units the whole set is portable.

Many sites already own one. Breweries, dairies and food plants run CIP daily as part of production. Where that is the case, the specialist contribution is often chemistry and cycle design rather than equipment, which makes it a considerably cheaper intervention.

Can a unit be cleaned in place while the plant runs?

Where the exchanger can be isolated while the process continues, yes. A duty-standby pair or a bypass makes this straightforward, and it is the ideal case: the plant loses nothing at all.

On a single unit with no bypass, circulation still needs an isolation window. It is a short one, usually a shift, but it is not zero, and planning is instead of waiting for a duty loss to force it.

Why did our circulation clean not work?

Most often temperature, contact time, or a single-stage cycle against an interlocked deposit. Those three account for the large majority of failed attempts, and all are cycle design, not chemistry strength.

The other possibility is that the deposit was never going to dissolve. Fibre, catalyst fines, silt and coke were not in solution and will not return to it, and no circulation cycle removes them. If a properly run two-stage cycle has already failed, the answer is mechanical instead of another attempt.

What happens to the spent cleaning solution?

It is neutralised and disposed of under duty of care, and it is one of the real disadvantages of chemical cleaning against jetting. Spent acid or caustic carrying dissolved deposit can be a more awkward waste than the site normally handles.

Some sites can take it through their own effluent treatment; many cannot. Establish the disposal route early, because on occasion it is the reason a mechanical method is chosen instead.

Will circulation damage the unit?

Not when the chemistry is chosen for the whole assembly. The risk comes from selecting on the deposit alone: an acid appropriate for the scale may be entirely inappropriate for the gaskets, the plate material or the connected pipework.

Acid cleaning on stainless also strips the passive layer, so passivation afterwards is part of the job, not an extra. A unit returned to service unpassivated will refoul faster and pit sooner than it did before.

How much cheaper is it than stripping the unit?

Substantially, and the gap is mostly labour and downtime rather than chemistry. There is no rigging, no transport, no strip and rebuild, no gasket set and no days out of service.

The comparison that matters is not price though. Circulation gets duty back; stripping gets duty back plus evidence about condition. Where that evidence is not needed, circulation is the better value; where it is, the cheaper job is not an alternative.

A specialist who cleans that unit type answers the request

Unit, deposit and postcode are enough to start. Your details go to a specialist who cleans that unit type. No obligation.

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