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THE FCHR PROJECT
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Problems and Needs |
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The EU food and drink industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the EU, with €965 billion turnover (about 15% of total manufacturing turnover) in 2008, about 310.000 companies and 4.4 million direct employees. The SMEs, which account for 99% of the companies involved in the sector, represent 48% of the turnover and 63% of total employees. However, studies commissioned by the EC indicate that competitiveness of European food industry remains weak compared to US and Canada. As an example, the EU dairy industry, representing around 15% of the turnover of food and drinks industry in Europe, even remaining the world’s number one cow milk producer with 142 mln tonnes, far ahead of US (80 mln tonnes) and India (38 mln tonnes), is facing increasing competition from emerging countries (China, India, US and South-America) and loosing export share: New Zealand is now the biggest exporter.
The most relevant challenges the sector is facing in the next future are:
- Improve competitiveness of the processors, which is increasingly decisive for the pricing, and
- Uptake innovations linked to the health and well-being of consumers.
The most relevant challenges the sector is facing in the next future are:
- Improve competitiveness of the processors, which is increasingly decisive for the pricing, and
- Uptake innovations linked to the health and well-being of consumers.
Process steps in which innovations could answer to both challenges are:
1. Alternative treatments for pasteurization, which are becoming increasingly important due to:
- The consumers’ demand for new methods of food processing that have limited impact on the nutritional content and quality of food;
- The need to improve the energy efficiency of the processes.
2. Alternative, more efficient processes for homogenizing, emulsifying, dispersing the fluid, which are commonly realized through rotating blades, mixers, or pumping devices with homogenizing valves that create a narrow passage through which the product is forced to flow out. This stage in the treatment of food provides improved product stability, shelf life, digestion, and taste. Alternative “non-thermal” solutions for realizing pasteurization and homogenization are being studied, such as pulsed electric field (PEF) and sonication through ultrasounds (US) or combination of these solutions. They all are being studied to process food at a significantly lower temperatures while delivering a safe product that preserves the integrity of the product and other desirable attributes, such as sensory characteristics and freshness. These approaches are indeed more efficient in terms of energy consumption with respect to common thermal treatment, but have the main drawback of the difficult scalability. In fact for both the PEF and the US the amount of fluid treated is the one which is near the emitters, making it difficult to treat high amounts of fluid. For this reason the industrial application of these technologies is still difficult and commercial solutions are still only applicable at lab or very small production scale, while no industrial solution is presently available.
References
1 - Food and drink Europe initiative
2 - “Competitiveness of the European Food Industry” 2007 - J.H.M. Wijnands, B.M.J. van der Meulen, K.J. Poppe
3 - Veijo Meriläinen, President European Dairy Association - Promoting the leadership of agro-food industry
4 - WO2006011176A1 Centrifugal rotary device for heating and/or vaporizing liquids.
2 - “Competitiveness of the European Food Industry” 2007 - J.H.M. Wijnands, B.M.J. van der Meulen, K.J. Poppe
3 - Veijo Meriläinen, President European Dairy Association - Promoting the leadership of agro-food industry
4 - WO2006011176A1 Centrifugal rotary device for heating and/or vaporizing liquids.
Scientific and Technological Objectives
The FCHR project proposes the implementation of an integrated pasteurizer and homogenizer for fluid foods based on an alternative approach induced only by mechanical means: hydrodynamic cavitation, which consists in the generation of huge amounts of energy in the form of shock waves, due to the turbulence produced in a fluid by pressure fluctuations. In fact, the turbulence creates pressure drops in local conditions, down to values lower than the partial pressure of the fluid, causing vaporization of the fluid in micro-bubbles of the order of hundreds nanometres up to a millimetre. In very short time these micro-bubbles implode due to the higher pressure surrounding them, and condensing reach high temperatures and release huge amount of energy in the form of shock waves (cavitation). This energy can be destructive in uncontrolled cavitation produced in turbo expanders, causing the destruction of impellers, but can be used for disinfection and heating in devices with specific design in which cavitation occurs in a controlled and non destructive way.
The project is promoted by the company Wixta Industries who has patented an innovative configuration of Centrifugal Hydrocavitation Reactor (CHR)4, reported in the figure below. The reactor has been devised for heating and vaporization of fluids and has been first tested in laboratory with the support of the University of Rome Tor Vergata (UTV), allowing to confirm that the reactor is able to continuously increase the temperature of a liquid flow of 300 l/h of 25°C with efficiency of 84%.
The project is promoted by the company Wixta Industries who has patented an innovative configuration of Centrifugal Hydrocavitation Reactor (CHR)4, reported in the figure below. The reactor has been devised for heating and vaporization of fluids and has been first tested in laboratory with the support of the University of Rome Tor Vergata (UTV), allowing to confirm that the reactor is able to continuously increase the temperature of a liquid flow of 300 l/h of 25°C with efficiency of 84%.
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Strategic Value Statement
Increase the competitiveness of fluid foods producers thanks to the process intensification
and energy efficiency while keeping the integrity of food nutritional and flavour attributes.
and energy efficiency while keeping the integrity of food nutritional and flavour attributes.
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Strategic Objectives |
S.0.1
S.0.2
S.0.3
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To perform pasteurization and homogenization in a single process, performed with a purely mechanical process, which is therefore highly scalable.
To substitute thermal pasteurization with a process working at lower temperature, while delivering a safe product that preserves the sensory characteristics and freshness.
To reduce processing cost, thanks to improvement in energy efficiency in the manufacturing steps (pasteurization and homogenization)
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O.01
O.02
O.03
O.04
O.05
O.06
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Operative Objectives
To optimize the design of the reactor and the rotor for the specific food industry needs, in particular for an industrial homogenizer / pasteurizer, and aiming to reach a controllable cavitation.
To prodcute the mechanical design of the reactor on the basis of results of CFD simulations and define the structural control, noise reduction and material selection through structural simulations, to avoid any wear.
To implement a specific control system for the control of cavitation and of the pasteurizing / homogenizing process.
To test the microbiological, chemical, physical and nutritional quality of 2-3 food products selected, inoculated with different kind of microorganisms, both on a preliminary non optimized small scale reactor and a large size optimized prototype of FCHR, under different operative conditions (flows, pressure, residence time, exit temperature).
To define a pasteurizing / homogenizing process design properly applicable at industrial scale in order to meet the specifications and regulation of the food production.
To evaluate the installation and operating costs of the pasteurizing and assess the technology against commercial benchmark from the different points of view: energetic, economic and quality of the products.
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Q.T. 1
Q.T.2
Q.T.3
Q.T. 4
Q.T.5
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Quantitative Targets
Size of reactor: 60cm diameter of the stator for the single module
Production capacity: 2000-3000 l/h with a module. Capable of being easily scalable with parallel reactors with flow rates of several thousands liters per hour.
Target exit temperature of the fluid: < 60°C (to be evaluated according to results of microbiological tests) with temperature increase of 30°C in the reactor.
Targeted sterility: Equivalent to pasteurisation at a minimum - i.e., inactivation of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and alkaline phosphate enzyme.
Energy efficient: Thermal efficiency of heating >90%, same as heat exchanger;
Energy saving for overall pasteurization and homogenization >15% |
References
5 P.R. Gogate “Application of Hydrodynamic cavitation for food and bioprocessing” “Ultrasound Technologies for Food and Bioprocessing” page 143 - Springer, 2010.
6 Milly PJ, Toledo RT, Harrison MA, Armstead D. – Dept of Food Science and Technology of the University of Georgia (USA) - Inactivation of food spoilage microorganisms by hydrodynamic cavitation to achieve pasteurization and sterilization of fluid foods. J Food Sci, 2008 Mar.
6 Milly PJ, Toledo RT, Harrison MA, Armstead D. – Dept of Food Science and Technology of the University of Georgia (USA) - Inactivation of food spoilage microorganisms by hydrodynamic cavitation to achieve pasteurization and sterilization of fluid foods. J Food Sci, 2008 Mar.
RTD Activities
- Definition of the specifications for fluid food pasteurization and homogenization in terms of sterility for target bacteria, energy needs, production capacity, plant investment, target temperature for pasteurization.
- Simulation of the hydrodynamic cavitation behaviour inside the FCHR will be studied through CFD model and parametric geometrical model aiming to reach a distributed and controllable cavitation.
- Microbiological and chemical/physical tests for the control of the fluid foods treated with a preliminary small scale prototype of FCHR, with different operative conditions and with different inlet temperatures.
- Design and implementation of the reactor: the FCHR prototype is implemented and preliminary tests carried out to evaluate functionality.
- Testing and scale up: testing on the target products and verification of the microbiological safety and product quality; definition of a pasteurizing/homogenizing process design properly applicable at industrial scale.
Demo Activities
- Technology evaluation: following results from previous WPs, pilot results will be elaborated in a specific work package to qualify the process with respect to: economic competitiveness, food quality, regulative issues. In particular the installation and operating costs of the pasteurizing/homogenizing steps will be assessed for different kinds of food from the different points of view: energetic, economic and quality of the products.
Other Activities
- Exploitation, dissemination and training: definition of the exploitation strategy and business plan, benchmarking the technology with respect to competitors in different application scenarios and delineating a business plan for the most promising. Technology transfer and training; Dissemination of results in events and commercial presentations
Management Activities
- Management activities will be carried throughout the entire project duration. The Coordinator of the project will follow the activities of all partners to achieve the objective of the project. The coordination will regard also the administrative management.
Work plan Structure
