In the competitive landscape of nutritional lipids, process capacity improvement is the engine of project success and robust investment returns.
However, scaling a facility isn’t just about increasing output.
It requires utilizing world-class engineering and sustainable circularity to produce the world’s most bioavailable Omega-3 components, ensuring that the leap to high-volume production never compromises individual consumer health outcomes.
The innovation route required to take a facility from producing hundreds of tons per year to a massive 20 Tons Per Day (TPD) closely mirrors the technological evolution our industry has experienced over the past few decades.
Here is a look at that developmental scale, and how modern engineering makes these production innovations possible.
The Evolutionary Scale of Omega-3 Production
The journey of scaling Omega-3 concentration typically follows a proven historical trajectory, demanding specific technological leaps at each stage:
- Phase 1: The Foundation (Hundreds of Tons/Year) Historically, this was the standard for early-stage or highly specialized producers. Operations at this scale often rely on batch processing or single-stage distillation. While perfect for market entry and proving product viability, the limitations in throughput and energy efficiency quickly become bottlenecks as market demand grows.
- Phase 2: The Acceleration (5 to 8 Tons/Day) This represents the crucial “scale-up” phase. To jump from yearly tonnages to processing 5-8 tons daily, producers must transition from batch to continuous processing. This era of development saw the widespread adoption of multi-stage Short Path Distillation Units (SPDU). At this stage, equipment must be optimized for continuous vacuum operation, allowing for the precise separation of EPA and DHA while protecting the oil from thermal degradation.
- Phase 3: High-Volume Mastery (20 Tons/Day and Beyond) Reaching a 20 TPD capacity is the pinnacle of current industrial scale. This phase requires not just larger equipment, but fundamentally integrated processing lines. It reflects the modern industry’s shift toward highly automated, continuous, and multi-technological facilities. At this scale, producers are running multiple dedicated lines simultaneously—for example, one line dedicated to high-purity up-concentration, another for re-esterified triglycerides (rTG), and parallel systems managing low-purity feeds and redistillation.
How We Engineer Production Innovations
Transitioning between these phases requires more than just buying bigger distillation columns or tanks; it demands a holistic redesign of the process production lines.
Here is how we partner with facilities to implement these capacity innovations:
1. Strategic Technology Integration Scaling to 20 TPD while targeting diverse product specifications (from standard 18/12EE/rTG, 30/20EE/rTG, 33/22EE/rTG, 35/25EE/rTG, 36/24EE/rTG, 40/20EE/rTG, 40/30EE/rTG, 50/20EE/rTG, 50/25EE/rTG, 50,40EE/rTG, 10/50EE/rTG, 10/60EE/rTG ratios up to extreme 97+ concentrations) requires blending technologies. We design continuous lines that integrate 8 to10-stage SPDUs equipped with high-performance molecular pumps for standard concentration, and seamlessly integrate advanced steps like the Urea Inclusion process and High Performance Liquid Chromatography SMB system to unlock ultra-high purity ratios that distillation alone cannot achieve.
2. Intelligent Yield & Reflux Optimization At high volumes, even a 1% loss in yield severely impacts profitability. We engineer systems that utilize low-content redistillation (keeping low content to disposal within 1-2%) and precise reflux controls. This allows operators to extract maximum value from intermediate grades, targeting 25%-30% finished product on the first pass while continuously upgrading the remaining oil.
3. Future-Proofed Facility Design Scaling up involves navigating complex layout constraints, floor height limits, and stringent food, drug, or API regulations. We approach a 20 TPD scale-up by designing three-dimensional or horizontal layouts tailored to the exact requirements of the process, ensuring environmental compliance, fire safety, and energy efficiency are baked into the core engineering.
Process production capacity innovation is a journey of continuous refinement. By applying the hard-won engineering lessons of the past decades to today’s cutting-edge technologies, we can help producers meet global demand profitably and sustainably.
