Let’s color the world!
We are GNT, an ambitious and innovative family-run business with a colorful character! With our EXBERRY® brand, we are the market leader in the field of Coloring Foods. Our colorings are 100% natural and are made from fruits, vegetables and plants.
We are world champions when it comes to utilizing the bounty of nature and strive to continuously innovate and improve natural color ingredients for the consumer. By carefully preserving all of nature’s beauty and goodness, we are able to offer our clients the highest quality and most reliable products. This is what continues to motivate us every day!
The most important ingredients for GNT’s success are our employees and the cooperation that exists between them. We believe in teamwork, and we are there for one another, our clients, our suppliers and our partners. That is what makes us GNT.
Due to an optimization project we are seeking for our production site in Heinsberg a fulltime
Internship Monitoring and Optimizing Decanter Performance (f/m/d)
Project Background:
Within GNT we produce natural food colorants from different vegetables. In general, the first step is a water extraction of the vegetable, followed by several refining and concentration steps. This means that the components which are naturally present in the raw material, also end up in our products.
The extraction is a multi-stage process in which decanters play an important role. Decanters are centrifugal separators which can handle high amounts of solids. The purpose of the decanter is to separate the juice (also called centrate) from the solids (also pomace). Ideally, the juice is free from solids and the pomace is free from liquid, but in reality this is not the case. Operating of the decanters always results in a compromise between the quality of the centrate (containing more or less particles) and the quality of the pomace in terms of a high or low water level. Typically, the operation of the decanters is complicated for several reasons. First of all, GNT processes multiple raw materials over the year, which all have their specific features and behaviour, meaning that there is often limited time to grasp the dominating phenomena in the equipment. Second, gradual fouling, gradual build-up of solids in the decanter, small variations in the extraction process complicates our understanding of the decanter. Third, the performance of the decanters cannot be easily determined as takes long to measure e.g. the dry matter in the pomace or amount of undissolved solids in the centrate.
Goal:
The goal of the traineeship is to determine the optimal performance of the decanter and to determine how (i.e. which equipment settings and process conditions) the decanters shall be operated to reach this optimal performance, while also ensuring a robust process.
An important facet of the assignment is to give the operator a way to monitor the performance and also how to identify potential upcoming disturbances and how to respond in case of a malfunction in the decanters.
Literature & background research, monitoring of production, laboratory analysis, pilot plant tests and production trials will be part of this thesis.
You will be in contact with operators, laboratory technicians, maintenance technicians, process technologists, process engineers, management and many more.
The results of the research project are confidential.
What do we find important?
The GNT values are the basis of our daily activities. That’s why we think it’s important that we fit together. GNT employs people who are enterprising and take responsibility. Customer and service orientation is of course paramount! We always take that extra step to offer our external and internal customers the best service. In addition, we do everything as sustainably as possible. We are open and honest with each other and bring out the best in each other.
We color the world, do you?
If you believe you satisfy our desired profile and would be interested in applying for this position, please contact us in writing including your resume, as well as your cover letter, and earliest possible start date to: [email protected]. You will soon find out if you will be invited for an introductory meeting.
Of course we handle your personal data with care. All applications will be treated equally.