The work, designed to reduce odour generated during the manufacture of fried and oven-cooked breaded and ready-to-eat products on six production lines at the site, was carried out by boiler specialist Babcock Wanson.
The Moy Park factory’s growth had created a need for improved odour abatement, not least because the site is located close to the town centre.
Babcock Wanson recommended that Moy Park replaced its existing catalytic thermal oxidisers with a more effective regenerative thermal oxidiser. This would be capable of treating the complete cooking exhaust stream, irrespective of the process heat load.
Clean, odeur free-air
The exhaust air from the cooking processes is fed through a heated matrix of ceramic honeycombs. It enters the oxidiser at around 60°C and is heated to 850°C, with a small burner adding the final heat to get the stream to full oxidation temperature. The exhaust stream is treated by passing it through three towers, which operate on a fixed rotation, thereby ensuring a constant treatment profile. The clean, odour-free air is then released into atmosphere.
The new regenerative thermal oxidiser allows up to 25,000Nm3/h of cooking exhaust to be treated with minimal use of natural gas. It is completely automatic. Babcock Wanson has also designed a secondary heat recovery system, which will provide up to 200kW of hot water from the clean exhaust air, thereby increasing the overall efficiency of the system and reducing overall site gas demand.
Babcock Wanson had previously installed thermal fluid heaters for Moy Park, which it uses for high temperature process heating.