Analysis and modeling of agricultural processing with regard to grain post-harvest handling and winemaking

Abstract

Life cycle assessment (LCA) is the assessment of all environmental burdens regarding a product, a service or a process from raw material to waste removal while TEA (Techno-economic analysis) is one of the economic analysis-methods that is widely used in food industry. The objective of the present study was to provide information with regard to economy and environment to help to make decision when establishing a winery, by conducting TEA and LCA for the particular red wine production processes. For LCA, the consumption of water, energy, greenhouse gas emissions, and solid waste generation were considered for environmental impacts. For TEA, small, medium and large-scale winemaking processes were chosen for analysis and a spreadsheet-based economic model was developed. The results of the LCA showed that bottle manufacturing, vine planting and winemaking processes contributed the greatest environmental impacts, while for TEA, the relationship between cost and profit among all three scales fitted an exponential model, and fitted a liner model better.

Assessment of a Low Temperature Closed-Cycle Grain Drying System

“…The trial 1 and trial 2 was conducted under a similar temperature condition which was 13 to 25 degree Celsius, the main reason caused the efficiency difference was before we started the trial 1 the whole drying system had not been operated for a while, and it took time to get the drying system work in the best condition and start to remove water from the corn. Zhang (2015) conducted a similar corn drying project which used the same drying system with the present study. In Zhang's study, two trials including fall trial and winter trial were conducted to measure the drying efficiency.…”