Agro-industry
IPSB offers you the benefit of nearly 20 years’ experience in beet, cane and grain transformation. Auditing sites, revamping installations, extending workshops and building new industrial plants are among the missions to which our experts and engineers bring added value.
A significant part of our activity focuses on the rapidly developing Agro-Industries sector, with its new market opportunities and its orientation towards environmentally friendly production.
The agro-resources (beets, sugar cane, grains, potatoes) used in our processes are intended for fractionation and to be transformed and upgraded into food and non-food products. In this context, IPSB offers you its know-how in the following sectors:
- Sugars
- Alcohols and biofuels
- Biomass energy valorization
- Grains
Historically, our engineering work for the major players in French sugar production is the basis of IPSB activity in this sector. Today, IPSB teams have expertise in this field available recognized by operators in beet, cane and grain transformation.
Our activities concern:
- Sugar production processes for the mass market
- Sugar production processes for food and non-food industries
- Valorization of process by-products (pulps, molasses, proteins, vinasses, etc.)
Our expertise focuses on:
- Improving energy efficiency
- Increasing production performance
- Renovating workshops
- Designing installations adapted to client needs and requirements (ease of operation, maintenance, extensibility, etc.)
Our strong points are:
- Knowledge of products and manufacturing intermediaries
- Hands-on expertise in carrying out audits and analyses, and in communicating with plant operators
- Mastery of operating constraints
- Access to diagnostic assistance software developed in-house for carrying out plant balances (mass and thermal) adapted to the processes employed
- Knowledge of unitary operations, from reception of raw materials to packaging, storage and shipment of finished products
Our missions range from specific audits, to monitoring plant performance, to project management for building new, fully-equipped workshops.
We are active in the following geographical regions:
- North and West Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Senegal and Ivory Coast)
- Eastern Europe (Ukraine and Romania)
- La France.
Our knowledge of sugar and starch processes, expertise in biotechnologies and mastery of engineering have led us to support our clients in their development and their diversification into new markets for alcohol and bioethanol production.
Today, with some 15 years’ experience, IPSB teams offer their clients a wide range of services for studying, building and optimizing potable alcohol and biofuel production installations starting with the fermentable sugar and starch raw materials from beet, cane and grain biorefineries.
IPSB, with numerous client references in alcohol production, is the preferred engineering firm of one of the European leaders in this sector and has provided it with project owner assistance from the master plan to the commissioning of all of its production lines.
In addition to 1st generation alcohol, IPSB was early on interested in 2nd generation biofuels and thus carried out studies on, as well as managed, the first French project intended to market an innovative process of lignocellulose biomass-based bioethanol production.
Whether providing assistance to the project owner or overall project management, IPSB will help you design and integrate the best technologies to implement energy efficient, environmentally friendly production units.
And beyond the main production line (e.g., preparation of raw materials, alcoholic fermentation, distillation, alcohol rectification and dehydration), IPSB offers you its expertise in the following areas:
- Alcohol storage, denaturation and shipment (truck/wagon loading stations)
- By-product valorization processes (vinasses, DDGS, etc.)
- Energy coupling optimization
- Water recycling
- Implementation of the Best Available Techniques (BAT) to limit environmental impact
Biomass valorization: an environmental necessity and an economic opportunity.
As biomass can provide energy in a variety forms (heat, electricity, gaseous fuel), industries seeking out our services are usually heavy energy consumers.
Our activity in this field concerns two of three principal process types used for converting biomass to energy:
- Thermochemical processes: combustion, cogeneration
- Biological processes: fermentation, methanization.
In recent years, IPSB has assisted several of its clients in design studies and in the construction of installations in the above area.
IPSB expertise covers:
- Overall production unit engineering
- Biomass packaging, preparation and handling
- Mastery of process technologies
- Management of interfaces and integration of technological packages
- Optimization of the distribution of energy produced in energy-consuming processes
In recent years, the IPSB teams have developed partnerships with European glucose and starch producers to provide assistance in the optimization, development (production capacity extension) and diversification (new products) projects.
These partnerships, in conjunction with our involvement in grain-based biofuel production projects, have stimulated our interest in grain fractionation and transformation processes. As a result, we have conducted studies for implementing high-capacity units with a raw material flow rate of 300 t/h.
Today, IPSB teams, capitalizing on their experience, offer engineering services for industrial units in the following sectors:
- Grain unloading and storage
- Cleaning and wet and dry fractionation methods
- Fraction (starch, gluten, etc.) liquefaction and hydrolysis
- Purification of molecules of interest (liquid/solid separations, membrane filtration, ion exchanges, chromatography, etc.)
- Product and by-product concentration and drying (atomization, ring dryer, etc.)
- Bulk storage (liquids and solids) of finished products
- Shipping stations (bulk loading, truck/wagon)
- Packaging workshops
- Functionalization units for primary products (hydrogenation, acetylation, etc.)
In addition, IPSB can support you in the design and construction of buildings that house these industrial units. Depending on the destination of the finished product (agro-food, baby food, pharmaceutical industries, etc.), building design may also require our expertise in the control of aseptic conditions.
Our references
Evaporation-installation project, 1st and 2nd effects
In the context of its multi-annual energy saving program, SAINT-LOUIS SUCRE entrusted IPSB with the task of assisting the Owner for the modernization of the diffusion workshop in order to allow the transition to 6 effects of the evaporation station.
Evaporation-installation project 2nd effect
The company Lesaffre Frères has entrusted IPSB with the detailed design and project management for a decarbonization project at its production site.
Study of the layout of a drying line
In 2021, to increase its processing capacity and decarbonize its operations, the CRISTAL UNION Group commissioned IPSB to conduct a detailed preliminary study for the installation of a third drying line. Powered by a biomass furnace, this line is designed to dry organic alfalfa, beet pulp, and sawdust.
Liquid sugar loading station
In 2013, CRISTAL UNION entrusted IPSB for the project management support towards the studies and execution of a new liquid and inverted sugars loading station at the client’s ERSTEIN facility.
Creation of a new workshop for the production of functional flours
The company LIMAGRAIN Ingredients has entrusted IPSB with the missions of studies of Preliminary Detailed Design and project management for the creation of a new workshop for the production of functional flours on its site of Arques (62).
Energy-saving project
TEREOS asked IPSB to carry out the missions of preliminary design, detailed design and project owner assistance for the realization of an energy-saving project which consist to replace thermos compressors in evaporation unit.