GEA expands its Process Test Center in Oelde, Germany, to 3,500 square meters by end of 2026

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On September 2, GEA launched the expansion of the Process Test Center at its mechanical separation technology production site in Oelde, Germany. A third test hall will be added to the existing test center for customer pilot trials, internal R&D, and testing of large-scale centrifuges and skid-mounted systems. The expansion is scheduled for completion by the end of 2026, bringing the total area of the test center to 3,500 square meters.

The expanded facility will be capable of processing up to 5,000 liters of feed or process media per hour. Test equipment covers disc stack centrifuges and decanter centrifuges. The center currently houses more than 120 test units, ranging from laboratory-scale equipment to skid-mounted systems approaching industrial scale, which can be used for centrifuge selection, process parameter testing, and production process validation.

The existing facilities at the Oelde test center also include an ATEX-compliant explosion-proof test laboratory, enabling process trials under potentially explosive atmospheres. With the addition of the third test hall, GEA will expand its testing scope to include larger equipment and complete skid-mounted systems, while organizing customer trials and internal R&D tasks separately.

The project also includes upgrades to the test center's infrastructure. GEA plans to equip the new test hall with power and water supply infrastructure and a closed cooling water loop; parts of the existing facilities will be modernized in parallel. The center has to date accumulated more than 60,000 test reports covering food, beverage, dairy, pharmaceutical, chemical, and other production processes that employ mechanical separation technology.

Oelde is the headquarters and main production site of GEA's mechanical separation technology division, with nearly 2,000 employees manufacturing industrial centrifuges. This expansion corresponds to the addition of a third test space to the existing test infrastructure and does not involve the construction of a new centrifuge production plant. The company has not disclosed the investment amount for the expansion project, the construction contractor, or the procurement cost of new test equipment.

The project has now entered the implementation phase. The third test hall and associated infrastructure are scheduled for completion by the end of 2026, after which the new space will be used for customer process scale-up, equipment testing, and validation of large skid-mounted systems.