Baking Line Reduces Carbon Emissions 22%

28 Mar Baking Line Reduces Carbon Emissions 22%

Baking Line Reduces Carbon Emissions 22% by Adding a Radio Frequency Post-Baking Dryer – A Case Study

Environmental studies show that carbon emissions from food production alone could use up all of our world’s CO2 budget to stay within the goal of a 1.5°C or 2°C global temperature rise. However, in the baking industry, there are a range of opportunities to avoid this benchmark and move one step closer to, “net zero.” Radio Frequency Company, located in Millis, MA has prepared the following case study:

Conventional baking ovens (those which apply heat to the outside surface of a product) are notoriously inefficient when it comes to removing moisture in the final stages of baking. This happens because, as a product develops loft and crumb structure, it becomes less of a thermal conductor and more of a thermal insulator which inhibits heat penetration toward the center of a product. Aggravating this problem is the amount of external heat applied to a product, in the final stages, must be limited to avoid scorching and over-coloration. This final stage of baking/drying often requires as much as one-third of the oven length or one-third of the total bake-time. By adding an RF post-baking dryer, band speeds can be increased up to 30% on average.

Because water is a polar molecule, it is extremely receptive to radio frequency (RF) heating. When exposing a product with an uneven moisture content (moist interior/drier exterior) to a rapidly oscillating RF field, the energy will preferentially target and remove moisture from the moist interior without overheating or discoloring the exterior surfaces. Also, because RF is a direct form of heating, the drying is 100% efficient, requires no warm-up time, and significantly reduces bake-time for most products. By eliminating this final drying requirement from a 300’ long DGF/Convection oven, the addition of an RF Post-Baking dryer achieved a significant reduction in carbon emissions. The following case study was observed and proven. (full study available upon request)

Combining Conventional Heating and Radio Frequency Heating/Drying in the production of a popular snack cracker:

• Natural gas consumption of a 300’ long DGF/Convection Oven: 6,300 cubic feet of gas to produce 6,250lbs of baked product per hour. 6,300 / 6,250 = 1.008 cubic feet of gas per pound of product produced.
• With the 22% increase in band speed provided by the efficiencies of RF drying, the same 6,300 cubic feet of gas, is now able to produce 8,000 pounds of product per hour (+22%): 6,300 / 8,000 = .78 cubic feet of gas per pound of product. A 22% reduction in greenhouse gas per pound of product produced.

Full details of this study are available upon request. Please refer inquiries to Lisa Mitchell by emailing here.