STiR coffee and tea magazine

Volume 4, Number 3

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STiR tea & coffee industry international 27 Diedrich Manufacturing Inc. unveiled a new marketing partnership at this year's Specialty Coffee Association of America conference and exhibition. Sam Weaver, c.e.o. of Cool Energy, explained how the companies first got connected: "About four years ago, Steve Deidrich heard that we were working on heat recovery tech- nology and came to visit. Then, [two years ago], Mike Paquin, who is now c.e.o. of Deidrich, came to visit and we showed him what we were working on." That visit led to establishing a co-marketing relationship to evaluate how the two companies' equip- ment might work together. Cool Energy's ThermoHeart "Sterling" Engine relies on a thermodynamics cycle By Jenny Neill Cool Energy is teaming up with Diedrich Manufacturing Inc. to find coffee roasters to pilot test the ThermoHeart Engine. Cool Energy Electricity production from roasting exhaust heat recovery Other factors matter, too, when it comes to making a decision about which equipment will best address the needs of a roaster customer. Karl Schmidt, president of Probat Burns, explained what sort of questions he would ask a prospective customer: "Is the area residential? Is it in a mall? Near a plaza? Is there a school around? Is there a kindergarten? All of these things come into play when recommending an air pol- lution remediation device." Koziorowski agreed that it is impor- tant to model the environmental aspects of the system carefully because Probat equipment lasts a long time. He said, "The problem is that our roasting equipment has a lifespan of 30, 40, 50 years in operation. When you're taking a look at emissions regulations, you find changes every four or five years." All those questions Schmidt would ask may well become the basis for more or less stringent standards depending where in the world a company is based. Probat, of course, offers components to address the needs of coffee roasters of any size. The RV, an afterburner, works well for customers in countries where emission regulation standards are quite low. It heats exhaust air to a temperature of approximately 450°C by means of an additional blower burner. The RVS, an extended afterburner, includes an addi- tional blower burner which increases the roasting exhaust air temperature to about 750°C. An optional temperature stage control system allows operators greater control over the average operating tem- perature. The TVR line of thermal pre-cleaners is comparable to that of the RV after- burner. The base model (TVR/KEG) can be fitted later with a catalytic after- burner (NVK, making the combination of TVR/NVK as depicted in the chart on the next page). The thermal pre-cleaner can also be equipped with a catalyzer cas- ing instead of a cone, which prepares the system for a later retrofitting of catalyzer cassettes. In this case, a catalytic after- burning takes place after the thermal pre- cleaning. If a roaster in the EU was trying to make the decision between the style of using a thermal afterburner with cone versus a cassette catalyzer and no chang- es in air quality standards were expected, involving the expansion and compression of air or other gas which then spins a per- manent magnet alternator to produce electricity. This type of closed cycle system was invented in the early 19th century by a Scottish minister by the name of Robert Stirling, for which this type of engine is named. Adding the ThermoHeart Engine to a coffee roasting facility makes sense because of the large amount of hot gas produced when an afterburner or other oxidizer technol- ogy is used to destroy pollutants. Exhaust gases reach temperatures of 800 to 1200°F and can be run through an external heat exchanger. This is the function the Thermo- Heart could serve in a coffee roasting facility. The energy recovery and return-on-investment will vary depending on the costs of electricity. Weaver stated, "if you're in Hawaii where you pay 40 cents a kilowatt-hour, you might see payback times under two years. If you're in California you might see

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