Assessment of Whole Milk Powder Production by a Cumulative Exergy Consumption Approach

Abstract

The production of food is a sector that consumes a significant amount of energy and encompasses both agricultural and industrial processes. In this study, the energy consumption of whole milk powder production, which is known to be particularly energy-intensive, was examined. The study used a cumulative exergy consumption approach to evaluate the overall production process of whole milk powder, including the dairy farm (raw milk production) and dairy factory (powder production) stages. The results showed that raw milk production dominated energy and exergy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. An amount of 68.3% of the total net cumulative exergy consumption in the system was calculated for raw milk production. In the dairy factory process, the highest energy/exergy consumption occurred during spray drying, followed by evaporation and pasteurization. In these three processes, 98.3% of the total energy consumption, 94.6% of the total exergy consumption, and 95.7% of the total carbon dioxide emissions in powder production were realized. To investigate the improvement potentials in the system, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources and using pasture feeding in animal husbandry were evaluated. While using alternative energy sources highly influenced powder production, pasture feeding had a high impact on consumption in raw milk production. By using renewable energy and pasture feeding, the exergy efficiency, cumulative degree of perfection, renewability index, and exergetic sustainability index values for the overall process increased from 40.5%, 0.282, −0.22, and 0.68 to 68.9%, 0.433, 0.65, and 2.21, respectively.

A Review of Energy-Efficient Technologies and Decarbonating Solutions for Process Heat in the Food Industry

“…This shows the importance of focusing on energy efficiency and de- The analysis of this process has drawn a lot of research to improve historical procedures [34][35][36] in which all steps and energy provided were considered individually. Uçal et al [37] analyzed a whole milk powder (WMP) production line principally based on natural gas for heating purposes and showed that pasteurization, evaporation, and drying represented 98.3% of the energy consumption and 95.7% of the CO 2 emissions-for a total of 10.2 MJ/kg WMP and 0.588 kg CO2 /kg WMP . Similar results are found in Ramirez et al with 11.1 MJ/kg WMP [32].…”

Reform of Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Teaching and the Curriculum System in the Context of the Energy Internet

“…However, with more advanced power electronics, there will be more smart terminals with metering capabilities and, therefore, the amount of data generated will far exceed what was originally to be processed [62]. This requires that these measurement devices themselves have greater processing and transmission capabilities and can share the workload for the data processing centers [63]. For example, when there are smart terminals, such as electric vehicle setups, more detailed information such as load detection can be obtained using sensors.…”