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Critical emissions
Service supplied by Labiotest
In companies that produce animal food, problems due to smelly emissions often occur.
Generally, these odours are due to the processing of raw materials used to obtain the finished product, as in the case of an industry in central Italy that contacted us for a problem with odorous emissions generated during three specific processing phases: extrusion, drying and cooling.
Let us have a look at some details, which these three phases consist of.
The product goes through a cooking process ensuring a reduction of the bacterial load, to make it safe from a microbiological point of view due to temperature (above 100°C) and pressure (between 20 and 40 bar as an average).
Limited to the production of fresh meat sticks, extrusion is a cold process, which allows shaping meat cords to cut be by means of a special cutter, before they are sent to the cooking oven.
A methane or steam dryer ensures temperatures that allow the evaporation and removal of excess water absorbed by the product in previous phases, if the process time is adequate. In such a way, humidity decreases, which ensures more stability to the product.
In the production of fresh meat sticks, the drying production process takes place in a ventilated tunnel oven. In this case, drying coincides with the slow cooking of the product at a low temperature (about 70°C for 4 hours).
Cooling products with a forced airflow at room temperature helps avoiding condensation in the subsequent storage phase, while ensuring more product stability over time.
Our client's critical emission points, due to the three above-mentioned production phases, were seven as a whole:
After examining the situation and the data provided by the client regarding effluents to be treated, our technicians developed a customized project to deal with critical emissions.
We used the plenum as a calming chamber to obtain optimal conditions as regards air speed and therefore guarantee the contact time necessary for our neutralizing product LT Air Plus, diluted at an optimal concentration, to ensure its best possible performances in order to reduce odour concentration.
In the lower part inside the calming chamber, six stainless steel bars were set up, each equipped with five spraying nozzles.
Two additional bars were positioned in the upper part of the plenum. The whole unit is handled by a nebulization system called HPS Midi Plus.
Using our osmogenic barrier, the client obtained a significant improvement in odorous criticalities, also demonstrated by olfactometric investigations that detected a reduction in odor concentration equal to 78%.
The customer has signed a total maintenance contract.