Fish processing facilities have demanding indoor conditions.
High humidity, changing temperatures, raw biological material and continuous staff presence can all contribute to microbial contamination in the air. In areas where fish is handled and packaged, this becomes an important part of general hygiene control.
One processing facility in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky needed an air disinfection system for production areas larger than 100 m².
The main requirement was that the system had to operate while people were working in the room.
The challenge
The facility already used conventional sanitation methods, but they had limitations.
Aerosol disinfection required staff to leave the area, which interrupted production. Exhaust ventilation helped with air exchange, but it was not intended to provide continuous germicidal treatment.
The new system therefore had to:
disinfect the air while staff remained in the room;
operate continuously during production;
avoid interrupting the technological process;
require relatively little maintenance;
comply with the required UV exposure limits for occupied spaces.
The selected approach
For this project, six UVL-Aero 400 closed air recirculators were used.
Each unit was designed for air treatment at up to 400 m³/h, making it suitable for continuous circulation of air in large production spaces.
According to the project specification, the system provided up to 99.9% reduction of Staphylococcus aureus under the stated operating conditions.
The important point here is that the UV source is located inside the recirculator housing.
Air is drawn into the unit, passes through the irradiation chamber, and then returns to the room. This allows the system to operate while employees remain nearby.
Equipment configuration
Each recirculator included:
an ozone-free amalgam UV lamp;
three axial fans rated at 17.2 W each;
a stainless-steel housing;
noise level up to 44 dBA;
a mobile base with wheels;
dimensions of approximately 1200 × 385 × 160 mm.
The units operated from a standard 220 V, 50 Hz power supply.
The specified volumetric UV dose was at least 385 J/m³, and the lamp service life was rated at up to 16,000 hours.
For a production site, this matters because frequent lamp replacement would otherwise create additional maintenance stops.
Why several units were used
Using one large recirculator is not always the best way to treat a production room.
Air movement inside industrial spaces can be uneven because of:
processing equipment;
walls and partitions;
cold zones;
doors;
ventilation outlets;
movement of employees and carts.
Several smaller recirculators can be positioned in different parts of the room, helping to circulate air more evenly through the treatment units.
In this case, six units were selected based on the room size and the operating conditions of the facility.
Installation and operation
Before production started, the available technical information about the rooms and operating conditions was reviewed.
The equipment was then prepared and delivered as a complete set.
Because the units were mounted on mobile stands, their positions could also be adjusted if the production layout changed.
This can be useful in food-processing facilities, where equipment placement is sometimes changed between production cycles.
What this case shows
UV air recirculation does not replace cleaning, ventilation or surface sanitation.
Instead, it can work as an additional layer of hygiene control.
For continuously occupied production areas, closed recirculators have one practical advantage: they can treat air without requiring the room to be evacuated.
That makes them useful in places where stopping production several times a day for air treatment would be difficult.
In food-processing environments, the most effective approach is usually a combination of measures:
proper ventilation;
regular cleaning;
surface disinfection;
temperature and humidity control;
continuous air treatment where necessary.
UV recirculation can be one part of that system.
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