Scraped surface heat exchangers
Scraped surface heat exchangers are vital for continuously processing viscous, sticky, crystallizing, or heat-sensitive products. Engineered for high efficiency and gentle handling, they guarantee consistent product quality in demanding food, pharmaceutical, and personal care applications. These units provide hygienic, reliable, and cost-effective thermal performance.
Efficient thermal processing with Alfa Laval Contherm®
- More options: As the only range with both single and double-wall scraped-surface heat exchangers, there’s a Contherm® for nearly any application.
- More quality: Contherm® scraped surface heat exchangers are engineered to prevent fouling while preserving key flavour and nutritive components.
- More savings: With innovations for improved energy efficiency and minimal maintenance, Contherm® can ensure the lowest possible cost of ownership.
- More reliability: Every Contherm® is built with proven components, and backed by a global network with over 80 years’ experience in heat transfer.
Contherm® scraped surface heat exchangers are robust, high-performance solutions for demanding heating and cooling duties across sectors such as food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, and personal care. Unlike traditional heat exchangers, these systems are engineered to handle viscous, crystallizing, or particulate-rich materials, making them ideal for challenging applications.
Alfa Laval’s rotating scraping technology reduces fouling during operation, which maintains high thermal efficiency while ensuring gentle product handling. This is especially important for shear-sensitive or sticky formulations, where maintaining product integrity is critical. Compared to a static scraped heat exchanger, Contherm® provides a larger flow area and reduced pressure drop, maximizing uptime and process reliability.
Features that make the difference
Everything you need to meet your challenges
Efficient heat transfer for viscous food products
The Contherm® single-wall scraped surface heat exchanger is engineered to handle medium- to high-viscosity products while delivering high throughput and consistent thermal performance. Its mechanical flexibility and variety of heat transfer surfaces support a wide range of applications. The unit can be installed in vertical or horizontal configurations and is designed for easy maintenance, allowing seamless integration into diverse process environments.
Gentle product handling with optimized thermal efficiency
The tangential product ports and unique internal flow geometry ensure a gentle, low-shear process, protecting product texture and integrity. At the same time, the optimized combination of rotor diameters and scraper designs enhances thermal transfer efficiency while reducing product waste and operational costs.
CIP compatibility and Food Contact Compliance
Every Contherm® unit is CIP-suitable, ensuring maximum hygiene and efficient cleaning between production cycles. Alongside a wide selection of food-grade gaskets and contact materials, the system guarantees safe and sanitary operation, even under demanding processing conditions.
Hygienic stainless-steel design for demanding applications
With a hygienic stainless-steel build and high-quality surface finishing, the Contherm® portfolio meets strict industry standards for food safety and reliability. It supports critical processes such as heating, cooling, crystallization, and evaporation, making it ideal for processing complex and sensitive food products. All product-contact components are compliant with food safety regulations.
Flexible layouts for space-conscious process integration
A broad range of layout options—including single or double wall, and horizontal or vertical installation—makes it easy to adapt the Contherm® single-wall unit to your existing process line. This versatility supports footprint optimization and accommodates layout constraints in new or retrofitted systems.
Discover more with the complete Contherm® scraped surface heat exchanger range
Contherm® heat exchangers have long been an established solution for viscous, sticky, crystallizing and particulate products. And now with the market’s most complete scraped-surface portfolio, there is truly a Contherm® for every possible need.
In the world of scraped surface technology, experience is paramount. You need to really understand exactly how a heat exchanger performs and how you can manipulate it to optimise performance.
Alfa Laval has been in the heat exchanger industry for over 50 years. We have 50 years of application experience with very robust, very hygienic designs. So our customers can trust that they’re getting a high-quality heat exchanger.
Alfa Laval is the only supplier that can offer both single and double-wall scraped-surface heat transfer solutions, as well as models specially designed to handle extreme product pressures. We also work closely with every customer to fully understand process needs and challenges and can offer unique testing to make sure the suggested solution is right. That’s how we ensure Contherm® scraped surface heat exchangers are always fully tailored to fit the intended application.
More possibilities across industries
The Contherm® portfolio of scraped surface heat exchangers in the food industry and beyond unlocks high-capacity, high-efficiency processing for demanding products. Traditional heat exchangers often fail when faced with viscous, particulate, sticky, or heat-sensitive ingredients, leading to product loss or inconsistent quality
Contherm® systems are engineered to handle these challenges with ease, offering reliable operation in both continuous and semi-continuous applications.
Beauty & hygiene formulations
Consumers expect consistent, high-quality health and beauty products. Contherm® technology ensures optimal results in:
- Body lotions
- Shampoos and conditioners
- Make-up products like mascara
- Toothpaste
- Deodorants
High-viscosity food products
In food processing, scraped surface heat exchangers preserve taste, color, and nutrition. Common applications include:
- Soups
- Sauces
- Dressings
- Fruit and vegetable purees
- Jellies
- Yogurt fruit
- Hummus
- Cream cheese
- Spreads
- Confectionary
- Protein such as meat & fish products, and ground meat product
Happy customers
Proven to give you more
Cedar's Mediterranean Foods is a leading manufacturer of hummus, with products in stores across the United States. Thanks to Contherm®, they can ensure a quality, all-natural product capable of surviving a long shelf-life without preservatives.
Proven to give you more
Cedar's Mediterranean Foods is a leading manufacturer of hummus, with products in stores across the United States. Thanks to Contherm®, they can ensure a quality, all-natural product capable of surviving a long shelf-life without preservatives.
Related products
What is a scraped surface heat exchanger?
What is a scraped surface heat exchanger, and how does it differ from static designs? Unlike traditional models that risk fouling and thermal inefficiency with viscous or crystallizing materials, scraped surface heat exchangers use rotating blades to remove buildup from heat transfer surfaces continuously.
This ensures consistent heat exchange, improved hygiene, and higher process uptime, especially in the food industry where maintaining product integrity is key.
Why choose Contherm®?
With over 50 years of expertise, Alfa Laval is the only supplier to offer the full spectrum of scraped surface heat exchanger technologies. Contherm® systems are designed to meet evolving process needs, offering unmatched durability, hygiene, and performance.
Single wall or double wall scraped surface heat exchanger: Which Contherm® should I choose?
Choosing between a single-wall or double-wall system depends on your process conditions, product type, and capacity requirements. Alfa Laval helps customers identify the best scraped surface heat exchanger design by evaluating product behavior, temperature demands, and process goals.
Even more with Contherm® Max double wall heat exchanger
The Contherm® Max double-wall scraped surface heat exchanger boosts capacity for demanding applications while maintaining gentle, hygienic product treatment. This solution expands the Contherm® family to meet even more operational needs.
The Optimal Heat Exchanger for Viscous Fluids in Food Processing: Beyond Plate Designs
When it comes to processing viscous fluids in the food industry, the efficiency and reliability of your heat exchanger are paramount. While plate heat exchangers are widely used, they often face significant challenges when handling thick, sticky, or particulate-laden products. For these demanding applications, scraped surface heat exchangers emerge as the superior solution, ensuring product quality, operational uptime, and efficient heat transfer.
Why Scraped Surface Heat Exchangers Excel Where Plate Heat Exchangers Struggle
Plate heat exchangers are highly efficient for low-viscosity, clean fluids. However, their narrow channels and fixed surfaces are prone to fouling when processing viscous or sticky food products such as:
- Soups, sauces, and dressings
- Fruit and vegetable purees
- Jellies and jams
- Yogurt with fruit inclusions
- Hummus and cream cheese
- Spreads and confectionery
- Meat and fish protein products
This fouling leads to reduced heat transfer efficiency, frequent cleaning cycles, increased downtime, and potential product degradation due to uneven heating or cooling.
In contrast, scraped surface heat exchangers, like the Alfa Laval Contherm® range, are specifically engineered to overcome these challenges. Their unique design features rotating scraping blades that continuously remove product buildup from the heat transfer surface. This proactive scraping action offers several critical advantages:
- Prevents Fouling: The continuous scraping keeps the heat transfer surface clean, maintaining high thermal efficiency even with highly viscous or sticky products.
- Handles Particulates: Unlike plate heat exchangers, scraped surface units can process fluids containing sensitive particulates without crushing or damaging them, preserving product texture and integrity.
- Uniform Heat Transfer: Consistent removal of the product layer ensures uniform heating or cooling across the entire surface, preventing localized overheating and maintaining product quality.
- Reduced Downtime and Cleaning: Minimal fouling extends run times between cleaning cycles, significantly increasing process uptime and reducing operational costs.
- Suitable for Heat-Sensitive Products: The efficient and gentle handling makes them ideal for heat-sensitive products, minimizing thermal degradation and preserving flavour, colour, and nutritional value.