Clanging pans, sizzling meat, cooks calling out orders — every­thing is perfectly chore­o­graphed when the prac­ticed team cooks dinner for up to 200 guests at the Hovs Hallar hotel restau­rant in Båstad, a commu­nity in southern Sweden. But perfec­tion is the top priority for more than just the kitchen team. The hotel’s director, Waldemar Larsson, sees to it that the hotel’s infra­struc­ture is also always up to date. In the past few years, he has installed an envi­ron­men­tally friendly waste­water system in which the waste­water under­goes plant-based rather than chem­ical treat­ment, and he uses renew­able energy for heating and hot water.

Larsson took another step in the modern­iza­tion of his hotel in 2016 when he set out to improve the kitchen exhaust system. “We worked for a long time with conven­tional grease sepa­ra­tors,” recalls Larsson. “But we always had the problem that grease deposits formed in the exhaust ducts.” Not only did that make extrac­tion of the used air more diffi­cult, it also increased the risk of fire in the exhaust ducts. When Larsson looked for an alter­na­tive, he came across the TurboSwing grease ­filter from Jeven. Its mechan­ical oper­ating prin­ciple imme­di­ately aroused his interest.

The disc trick

The TurboSwing grease filters are placed right on the air intakes above the cooking areas. At their heart is a metal disc with perfo­ra­tions of different sizes. The disc rotates at up to 1,100 revo­lu­tions per minute. As a result of the speed and the arrange­ment of the holes, the disc flings both large and small (down to four microns) grease droplets to the sides, where they accu­mu­late on the walls of the TurboSwing housing and flow through a channel to a collec­tion tray. The tray can be easily and regu­larly emptied by the cleaning staff.

The latest TurboSwing variant combines mechan­ical grease sepa­ra­tion with UV radi­a­tion to remove even the smallest grease droplets from the exhaust air. (Photo | Patrik Sved­berg)

Another special feature of the TurboSwing is that with its mechan­ical oper­ating prin­ciple, the filter features a constant level of grease sepa­ra­tion inde­pen­dently of the air pres­sure over its entire oper­ating range from zero to 60 pascals. That means that a restaurant’s exhaust system can operate outside peak hours at lower output without cleaning the air less effi­ciently. And since the exhaust is clean, it can be also fed into a waste heat recovery system, which would be impos­sible with cont­a­m­i­nated air.

The metal disc in the TurboSwing filter is driven by a motor from ebm-papst. The motor, actu­ally designed for a fan, is ideal for this appli­ca­tion, as Anders Tingsvik, Marketing Manager at Jeven, explains: “Our first motor in the TurboSwing was very heavy and used a lot of elec­tricity. So we looked to ebm-papst for a lighter and more effi­cient alter­na­tive. The EC motor that we’re using now is espe­cially energy-effi­cient, reli­able and quiet.”

Quiet grease control

Larsson wanted to see these bene­fits in action in his hotel, so he had his kitchen converted to work with TurboSwing. “The differ­ence is really unbe­liev­able. There is no more grease buildup in the ducts at all. And the TurboSwing also runs very quietly. The kitchen staff, who stand under the hood for hours on end, really appre­ciate that.” Since the collec­tion tray is easy to empty, cleaning the exhaust system is consid­er­ably easier. There is one more thing that shows how convinced Waldemar Larsson is by the system: He has now installed a TurboSwing at home.