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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DRALOD (Renewables-based drying technology for cost-effective valorisation of waste from the food processing industry)

Teaser

Summary

THE PROBLEM BEING ADDRESSED
The EU27 annually generates 90 million tonnes of food waste, implying a major environmental problem, Experts have highlighted the need for generation of food waste valorisation and re-use strategies to produce higher value and marketable products, leading to a higher adoption of circular economy strategies by the food processing sector.
This project identifies an excellent business opportunity in promoting the valorisation for reuse of certain wastes from the food and drink processing industry, characterised by:
- A high content of water (>80%), which has traditionally been a drawback for reuse, since this type of waste has a very rapid fermentation and degradation and is enormously inefficient for transport and storage.
- Containing highly valuable nutritional ingredients, thus widely validated by the scientific community as rich in functional biocompounds, demanded by the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industry.

WHY IS IT IMPORTANT FOR SOCIETY?
Our process offers an environmental-friendly path for valorisation of food processing waste, savings CO2 emissions to the atmosphere with reference to a drying system powered by natural gas. Drying of high-water content waste brings additional climate change related benefits, from the perspective of reducing the volume of road transport from the reduction of an average 65% of mass of the product, after being dried. Additionally, DRALOD will also have an important beneficial impact by enabling the reuse of food processing waste, as a valorised product for animal feeding and/or functional ingredients for the nutritional and the pharma industries.
This project mat lead to the following benefits to the society:
- Contributing to protect society against the adverse effects of global warming, by contributing to address the challenge of shifting air drying processes to clean energy and of reducing the volume of road shipments related to waste management in food processing.
- Contributing to the generation of jobs in emerging sectors such as waste valorisation, as well as in consolidated sectors such as renewable energies, in particular solar and biomass industrial segments.
- Contributing to preserve ecosystems by providing alternative methods that displace landfilling.

OVERALL OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT
The main technical objectives of this project are:
- To design, implement and validate an energy recovery system, optimised to DRALOD plantÂ´s operating conditions
- To implement a biomass heating system with high flexibility concerning both type of fuels / fuel quality and mode of operation to enable low operational costs as an auxiliary heat source.
- To design, implement and validate a proprietary smart controller unit for a combined solar-biomass drying plant based on thermodynamically simulation of multidomain dynamic system
- To design DRALOD drying plant, as the integration of these subsystems with SolarWall heat collectors and with selected commercial components for the drying tunnel and auxiliary systems.
- To commission a pilot plant with a capacity of 35,000ton waste/year from >80% to <15% water content and to run a demonstrator for a 6-month period, and assessment of plant performance from a financial, operational and environmental perspective.

Work performed

Completing the specification of operational conditions for the DRALOD pilot plant, including:
- The determination of 3 types of wastes to be used in the pilot demonstration: brewersÂ´ spent grain, orange pulp and peels and sugar beet pulp.
- The determination of the pilot plantÂ´s location: Chiloeches in Spain.
- The determination of the operating temperature (75ÂºC) and the type of dryer system (co-current rotary system with double pass trommel).

Completing the design phase and initiating the prototyping phase for the following subsystems:
- Heat Recovery Unit under the responsibility of RISE: Design of a unit made up of a scrubber condensation unit that recovers heat from the exhaust air at the dryer output and a heat pump system to upgrade heat from the solar air heating to a usable temperature.
- Biomass heater system under the responsibility of Ã–KOTHERM: A biomass heating system is designed to work as an auxiliary heat source in the DRALOD plants

Completing the conceptual design phase for the following systems:
- Smart control system under the responsibility of DBFZ: A system is conceptually designed to continuously provide the heated air with almost constant properties to the drying process.
- Pilot plant, under the responsibility of L. PERNIA: the conceptual design of the pilot plant is finalised. It will guide the installation works of each subsystem in the pilot plant at Chiloeches (Spain).

Initiating the building phase of the pilot plant, under the responsibility of L. PERNIA

Creation of dissemination tools (website, press release, poster, presentation slides) and initiation of some dissemination actions including:
- DBFZÂ´s abstract â€œRenewables-based drying technology for cost-effective valorisation of waste from the food processing industry â€“ DRALODâ€ for the 6th Central European Biomass Conference on 22.-24th of January 2020 in the Messe Congress Graz (Austria)
- Ã–KOTHERMÂ´s registration to participate as an exhibitor in the Agritechnica, the worldÂ´s leading trade fair for agricultural machinery, on 10-16th of November 2019 in Hannover (Germany)

Final results

DRALOD proposes progress beyond the state of the art for delivering a new drying plant concept designed for the European markets where climatological conditions imply a need for sophisticated and energy efficient heating systems and a technical challenge in the optimisation of the combined operation to the level of achieving cost-effectiveness in the drying of waste.
DRALOD proposes an innovative low-temperature air drying plant with the core advantages of being:
- Sustainable: using renewable energy sources (solar and biomass air heating) as well as heat recovery for increased energy efficiency.
- Suitable for the preservation of nutritional ingredients: using a temperature process demonstrated to be reliable for eliminating pathogens while preserving nutrient content.
- Suitable for valorisation of waste with a high content of water: enabling a water content reduction from approx. 80% to less than 15%, extended shelf life from approx. 7 days to 1 year), thus increasing the economic feasibility of their storage and transport.
- Cost effective: with optimised operational cost, enabling financial feasibility in the drying of low price products.

DRALOD has a high potential socio-economic impact as a game-changer technology with the potential to create a new market by offering a solution to food processors for obtaining value out of wastes with high water content, in a sustainable manner. Food processors have a burning demand for implementing more sustainable solutions, contributing towards a circular economy. A more and more environmental conscious European society is increasingly low-waste and full utilization of products in agribusinesses, to reduce environmental footprint. As a result, there is an increasing interest to improve efficiency in waste treatment through advanced manufacturing practices, and constructive utilization by bioconversion of by-products and waste into edible food, feed or industrial chemicals to decrease environmental loadings because of better-integrated waste management.