APPLICATIONS OF THERMAL ENERGY STORAGE TO WASTE HEAT RECOVERY IN THE FOOD PROCESSING INDUSTRY.

The purpose was to assess the potential for waste heat recovery in the food industry and to evaluate prospective waste heat recovery systems employing thermal energy storage. The project was conducted with the cooperation of the H. J. Heinz Company. Heinz arranged access to two of their manufacturing plants within the Heinz USA Division and permitted the analysis of factory and food system operations. Besides the selection of the two survey sites, a waste heat availability study was performed at each site and recovery system concepts were developed and evaluated. Based upon the study, it appeared that waste heat recovery from certain food processes is feasible and can be performed economically using available, off-the-shelf hardware. Extrapolating results from the studies to the canning and frozen food industries yields projected savings of 6. 4 multiplied by 10**1**2 Btu annually which correspnds to nearly 0. 7% of the total energy currently consumed annually by the entire Food and Kindred Products industry.