Continuous Monitoring of Whey Protein Fouling Using a Nonintrusive Sensor

In this work, a nonintrusive device to monitor fouling of a plate heat exchanger is presented. This device is composed of a flat electrical resistance covering a thermocouple located on the external face of a tubular holding section. The tubular holding section is placed immediately after the investigated plate heat exchanger, constituting the heating zone for which fouling monitoring is required. The principle of detection consisted in following the evolution of the measured temperature with time when a fixed thermal heat flux imposed by the resistance is dissipated through the temperature sensor. The measured temperature is supposed to vary with time since the inner temperature on the inner surface of the holding tubular zone is linked to the fouling growth. It is shown that the device response is highly correlated to the fouling occurring in the plate heat exchanger and could be a promising way for monitoring fouling rate (cheap and easy to implement avoiding cleanability drawbacks).