|
 THE CHALLENGE
Food processing facilities where foodstuffs are cooked (heated, boiled, fried or
blanched) must deal with hot and humid process vent stream and may have to address
entrained oil or other byproducts of the process. Some of the streams are regulated
for emissions and have required substantial investment in pollution control
equipment (sized for volume-of-flow) to comply with local clean air requirements.
Other streams are simply vented due to the limitations of traditional heat transfer
equipment to deal with entrained particulates or the relatively low heat content of
the vent stream(s).
Breweries and similar facilities typically brew their products, frequently
venting the flash. Separately, they operate boilers to generate steam to provide
heat for pasteurization and/or washing operations to meet USDA, FDA or other
requirements.
The Answer
For both food processing and brewing facilities, the Direct Contact Inc. (DCI)
Heat Recovery System overcomes the limitations of traditional heat recovery
equipment recovering the otherwise wasted heat from the process vents and returning
the heat to process in the form of very hot water. Using a two-chamber version of
the patent pending design, the DCI Heat Recovery Vessel’s first chamber conditions
the dirty gas by removing the majority of any particulate mater and condenses
“high boiler” contaminants (e.g. oils) before sending the conditioned gas to the
heat recovery chamber. The custom-designed unit then recovers both the latent and
the sensible heat in the gas stream and sends it to process in the form of hot
water. For relatively clean process, such as brewing or simple boiling, a
single-stage system can send the recovered heat directly to a process use or to a
heat exchanger where the heat can be transferred to a potable water stream.
The Direct Benefits
The overall heat efficiency of the food and beverage processes increase
dramatically while the waste streams emitted from the process are reduced in
volume as well; hot water supplied by these systems can displace “virgin” heat.
Energy savings can quickly add up to offset the initial purchase and installation
costs of the Direct Contact Inc. (DCI) Heat Recovery System and start to contribute
to the facility’s bottom line profitability.
Considering that the DCI Heat Recovery System can also function as a prescrubber
and volume reducer to the vent stream, this can allow for any required downstream
pollution control equipment to be significantly downsized and run with a reduced
income “loading” of certain contaminants. Reductions in steam plume volumes and
some odors may also benefit your public relations with the surrounding community.
|
