Heat Treatments

Rentokil now offers Heat Treatment facilities. We have 2 types of treatment available:

• Dry Heat Treatment
• Moist Heat Treatment

Heat treatment is for both import and export of goods for the sterilization and or devitalisation of the product without the use of toxic gases. Some products include birdseeds, grains, herbs, bark products, Bali grass thatching, water hyacinth and moss products.

The oven sizes used are 2 x 26m3 ovens and the new 80m3 oven. All of Rentokils ovens use convection heating to ensure there is no chance of direct burning or ignition of the product. Although, there is always a chance of this happening due to the nature of some products. Rentokil has been heat treating for over 15 years and we have never had a problem with the product being burnt.

With export packaging guidelines that came into effect in early to mid 2004, exporters have the option for fumigation, heat treatment or kiln drying. We have learned that due to the damaging affects of Methyl Bromide on the Ozone layer, some countries prefer heat treated timber packaging - A process that Rentokil is more than capable of providing to our clients.

Dry Heat Treatment

Dry heat treatment is the most common used of both oven treatments available. Depending on the product, the normal rate for heat treatment is 85oC for 8 hours, which is the temperature and time AQIS has assessed to be enough to sterilize a product. Other treatments vary from 85oC to 121oC (Soil) and up to 48 hours. Some timber products over 200mm in diameter require heat treatment at a rate of 56oC/30 minutes core temperature. This process involves drilling a hole in the product so that a probe can be inserted. Even though treatment is only for 30 minutes, it can take quite a few hours to reach the core temperature. This could possibly cause the product to crack, although we attempt to reduce this chance by bringing goods to temperature slowly.

Rentokil as well as AQIS provide Australian company's a service for some products that have to be heat treated before they can go interstate or to the public. Some of these products include honey, some grains and poppy seeds. Personal effects are heat treated to ensure there is no foreign product coming into Australia to affect our flora and fauna.

Moist Heat Treatment

Moist heat treatment is a heat process the same as dry heat but involves the adding of a minimum of 50% humidity. Rentokil uses this treatment in conjunction with AQIS to devitalize products for import and export. The moisture penetrates the seed or seeded product and due to the temperature devitalizes it due to moisture temperature killing the seed.

Rentokil has found that if this treatment is required there is also some time required after moist treatment for dry treatment to be done to ensure the product does not go moldy or sweat.

To find out more about Rentokil Fumigation please call our National Fumigation Head Office on 1300 568 931 or click here to contact to send an enquiry.