As we have mentioned in previous articles, regular kitchen exhaust hood cleaning is an essential part of any restaurant or facility’s fire safety precautions and is required to remain code-compliant. Grease build-up is very dangerous because it is highly flammable, which means that a momentary flare from the stove top could be all it takes to start a deadly fire.
Though regular hood cleanings completed by a trustworthy company will effectively protect your business, there is a new innovation that is managing to eliminate grease before it has a chance to accumulate.
This new innovation utilizes the power of uv-light and mechanical filtration to bust the grease particles before they have the chance to travel into the duct work and accumulate in harder to reach places. As the grease carries up into the duct work, it first travels through mesh filters. Whatever grease is not captured by the filters is distributed more evenly behind them to prevent the thick, hard to clean tough spots that can occur when the majority of the grease builds up in a few main spots. This is when the uv-lights eliminate the fire hazard by clearing away the remaining thin layer of grease.
The technology works by utilizing the chemical reactivity of the grease particles. The light is able to create a reaction which breaks down the molecular bonds of the grease, leaving the duct work clean and dramatically reducing the amount of times the hood needs to be cleaned by outside sources.
New buildings and large facilities are especially good candidates for this. Installing uv-lighting in the duct work of a new commercial kitchen system could help it maintain its immaculate condition, while utilizing it in the lengthy duct work of a large facility would help cut the costs of the hours-long hood cleanings required to properly remove the fire hazard from the appliance.
The use of uv-lighting for hood cleaning is an exciting innovation that will be able to provide greater peace of mind to restaurant and facility owners by dramatically reducing this dangerously common fire hazard. It will be interesting to see the ways this technology continues to develop and be used in the future.