A 'nano factory' that fits inside a shipping container (2021) | Hacker News Reader

A 'nano factory' that fits inside a shipping container (2021)

cnn.com

26 pointsTomte12 comments

Disappointed to not discover a lathe, drill press, any form of manual or cnc manufacturing equipment, 3D printers or basically anything else that could be used to manufacture stuff. Since “factory” is after all derived from “manufactory”… a place that manufactures stuff. This thing aggressively boils stuff to modern hygiene standards … this isn’t a factory it’s a very overgrown commercial kitchen appliance.

Not saying it wasn’t worth it or a good idea or otherwise denigrating the device itself… I just think this isn’t a good use of the word factory.

like a food truck for industry, or an entire factory hyperconverged into one 'machine'

shame they don't show what the inside looks like

It’s lots of Oompa Loompas.

First-party source: https://www.unilever.com/news/news-search/2021/how-our-engin...

Apparently it makes liquid bouillon?

And a lot of it, apparently

> The nano factory is currently in the Netherlands, in the middle of its first trial producing liquid bouillon, a cooked stock packed in a bottle. Unilever says the factory is making around 300 tons of bouillon per eight-hour shift.

If I'm google correctly a 40ft container has 70m³ of volume (i.e. 70 tonnes of water), but can produce 300 tonnes of liquid bullion (~4x the volume of the container) in just 8 hours.

I suppose they're not boiling it for as long as a homecook would?

Considering the energy requirements to boil off that much water (70tonnes * reduction ratio) and form factor - notably the lack of a tall evaporating column - I'd hazard that they are concentrating via reverse osmosis. So the inside probably looks something like:

Pump -> Heat Exchanger [Cold to Hot] -> heater (sanitize and start cooking the stock)

-> continuously stirred vessel or just a large volume of insulated tube (cook time set by volume of vessel/tubing)

-> the same Heat Exchanger [Hot to Cold]

-> Membrane Separator [probably but not necessarily a bunch of tubes] which splits into Product and effluent [more or less pure water]. This step is also popular in Maple Syrup production to cut down on boiling, which is slow, costly, and can degrade the product due to temperature.

  -> Product IBC cube
  -> Sewer drain

Plus a bunch of valves and instrumentation for control and monitoring.

Is vacuum distillation a thing in food production?

Probably, can't say I am an expert. For bouillon which presumptively[0] has a very high boiling point due to the high concentration of salts even with vacuum a pot-style distillation would probably[0] be fairly slow. A falling film evaporator would likely work well, but there doesn't appear[0] to be room in the container for one.

Going all the way to solid bouillon a spray-dryer would make sense, and would fit. Solids handling is usually a pita though.

[0]Sorry for the weasel-words: only my general, not specific, experience applies.

300 tons in 8 hours is 20 pounds a second. That’s like 3 gal/s.

Amazing numbers, even a water pipe that carries that much is a lot, much less bouillon

Seems like the concept would be more useful for emergency response, making e.g. hot meals for a sudden refugee camp.

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