Techno-Economic Assessment: Food Emulsion Waste Management

Abstract

Production of food-grade emulsions is continuously rising globally, especially in developing countries. The steepest demand growth is in the segment of inexpensive meat products where edible emulsions serve as lubricants to mitigate economic loses linked with mechanical damage during automated processing of artificial casings. Provided that production goal is to minimize emulsion transfer into the product, its vast majority becomes voluminous greasy and sticky waste. Public sewage treatment plants cannot process such waste, its cleaning processes tends to collapse under loads of emulsions. To make matters worse, composition of emulsions often changes (according to actual pricing of main components) and emulsion manufacturers carefully guard their recipes. Therefore, running of in-house sewage plants would require continuous experimentation linked with need for skilled personnel, frequent changes in technology setup and high operating costs in general. Consequently, it was repeatedly and independently reported that emulsion waste is poured onto wildlife, resulting in environmental damage and an intense rotting odor. Three new methods of emulsion breakdown are proposed and techno-economically assessed. High versatility of methods was confirmed and multiple austerity measures were incorporated. Emulsions are also assessed in terms of an energy source for aerobic and anaerobic microorganisms. It is reported that the addition of edible emulsion to compost does not result in increased product quality or cost reduction. It is firstly revealed that edible emulsions can instantly create an anaerobic environment and accelerate biogas production through the formation of surface films on feedstock surface. Adding waste food-grade emulsions to the biogas plant makes it possible to 100% reduce process water consumption in biogas stations as the process speed can be shortened by approximately 12%.