Vegetable oil heaters for the snack food industry
The snack food industry is particularly interested in our heaters. We design and fit this equipment to a range of frying processes and capacities. Why? Because we offer a robust technical solution with functional reliability, allowing 100% availability throughout the lifetime and limited maintenance costs. We offer design for high temperatures: up to 950°C on the gas side.
Besides, at Sterling TT, we help our clients to reduce waste and increase their efficiency. Implementing a waste heat recovery system can significantly reduce your factory’s energy consumption. Every unit of captured waste heat directly replaces each unit of purchased energy.
Optimum heater design
Who would like to eat crisps or other snack food with a tainted or burnt flavour? The answer is, no one! So, we offer the manufacturers a proven design for gently heating frying oil, minimal back-pressures, engineered tube bundle oil flows and excellent heat transfer. Besides, to avoid burning the oil, the complete formed U-bend ensures flow and turbulence within the tube, reduces any hot spots whilst allowing the tubes to expand without damaging the unit.
Our counter flow design maximises heat transfer and improves efficiency. We select the most suitable surfaces for the process conditions; finned, partially finned or plain tube, dependent upon the thermal requirements and potential fouling from the heat source. By using finned surfaces, the heaters are compact and light, giving a higher performance. However, if there are heavy fouling gas streams, we will not use fins.
When manufacturing heaters for the food industry, hygiene is essential. Therefore, all parts in contact with the product are in stainless steel. We take extra care to avoid dead spots that might result in liquid hold up, ensuring a uniform distribution of the oil.
Safe and reliable heaters
As these heaters are working at high temperature, we need to make sure they are reliable and safe. There is no welding in the hot gas streams, which reduces the potential for leaks and therefore minimises fire risk. Furthermore, the health & safety of production operatives and staff is crucial. So, to keep the external wall temperature of the exchanger to acceptable levels and minimise heat loss, we use a refractory lining, an added advantage from a sustainability angle.
Our heaters comply with Pressure Vessel Codes, including PED, ASME VIII or others on request. We offer heat exchangers as main heaters, but we can also propose to add an economiser to a full heat recovery potential.
Waste heat recovery option
By utilising an economiser section, you can recover further valuable residual heat from the exhaust gas. The economiser is usually fitted downstream of the main oil heating section and is used to preheat incoming combustion air or as an oil preheater. For even more significant energy savings, gases can be cooled below their condensing temperature, releasing additional energy in the form of latent heat for further efficiencies.
For more information, contact us.