Agrifood Plant Case Study: The Oil Challenge
For several years, an agrifood plant has been facing a roof degradation problem due to the oil vapours from cooking French fries.
The roofs of potato processing plants are often damaged by oil from deep fryers. It makes its way to the ceiling and degrades certain areas of multi-ply or bitumen-based roofs.
Synthetic roofs were tested in places with high exposure to cooking oil and appeared to hold up well. However, after a year, oily residue and oil contamination made any repair impossible.
The client tested four or five different types of roofing, and none proved to be resistant to grease; after a year, the membranes were damaged and irreparable.
In search of a sustainable solution allowing maintenance and repairs, the company approached SOPREMA in 2016. We then offered our client a waterproofing system made of polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA).
Since its installation, the roof has been showing very good resistance to maintenance chemicals and cooking oil. In addition, when repairs are necessary, it is possible to reactivate the waterproofing membrane using an appropriate solvent, thus ensuring good adhesion between the new membrane layer and the old one.