Energy recovery unit for potato chips production line
Manufacturers of French fries and potato chips require a lot of energy for heating and cooking. With energy costs rising and emission regulations getting tighter, manufacturers are looking into sustainable and more environmental-friendly solutions for their operations. Producers can reuse energy and reduce emissions by extracting heat energy from the moisture in vapor streams generated in frying systems. This energy can be utilized in other processes, such as cleaning.
Saving energy costs by reusing heat energy from the frying process
The Energy Recovery Unit from Kuipers is a heat recovery and odor eliminating system for potato chips and French fries production. The system processes the multi-phase vapor stream containing moisture, oil particles, and odor from the frying system’s exhaust vents or chimneys. First, the oil particles are eliminated. A wire mesh demister separates the droplets from the vapor streams. Further, the hot vapor streams move upwards the condensate tower. A collection tank at the bottom of the condensate tower collects excess moisture from the vapor in the form of warm water. Now separated from excess moisture and oil fumes, the dryer vapors contain much less odor.
An additional odor treatment system known as Odourtubes removes the remaining odor through the ozone treatment process. With this system, it is important to reuse the energy recovered immediately within the line for other purposes, such as cleaning where warm water is needed.
Benefits
- High energy recovery rates saves costs on energy consumption
- Removal of oil fumes and vapor reduces gas emissions
- Sustainable operation
- Stand-alone unit with dedicated controls
- Compact system allows easy integration with existing production lines