Techno-Economic Assessment: Food Emulsion Waste Management

George Lazaroiu, Katarina Valaskova, Elvira Nica, Pavol Durana, Pavol Kral, Petr Bartoš and Anna Maroušková
Additional contact information
George Lazaroiu: Department of Economic Sciences, Faculty of Economic Sciences, Spiru Haret University, 46G Fabricii Street, 030045 Bucharest, Romania
Elvira Nica: Faculty of Administration and Public Management, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, 010374 Bucharest, Romania
Pavol Durana: Faculty of Operation and Economics of Transport and Communications, University of Zilina, Univerzitna 1, 010 26 Zilina, Slovak Republic
Pavol Kral: Faculty of Operation and Economics of Transport and Communications, University of Zilina, Univerzitna 1, 010 26 Zilina, Slovak Republic
Petr Bartoš: Faculty of Agriculture, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice, Studentská 1668, 370 05 České Budějovice, Czech Republic
Anna Maroušková: Institute of Technology and Business in České Budějovice, Okružní 517/10, 370 01 České Budějovice, Czech Republic

Energies, 2020, vol. 13, issue 18, 1-12

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%.

Keywords: emulsion breakdown; techno-economic assessment; bioeconomy; process management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4922/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/18/4922/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:13:y:2020:i:18:p:4922-:d:416084

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().