Energy and exergy analysis of Soybean production and processing system

Abstract

This study addresses energy and exergy analysis of soybean production and processing operations in Nigeria. The total energy utilization, the point of energy losses, wastage and degradation associated with production of soybeans and industrial processing of crude vegetable oil and soy meal, was investigated using the exergetic analysis approach. The energy and exergy analysis conducted, was limited to available data collected from a representative farm and processing outlets. It was found from the study that the high energy sequestered in machineries and some other inputs (such as fuel used to operate the machineries and nitrogen fertilizer) used during the production of soybeans resulted in minimal useful work (exergy). On the other hand, the exergy-energy ratio of some other inputs, such as potassium and phosphorus, were found to be greater than unity. The energy and exergy study of the industrial processing of soybean into soy oil also revealed that the highest energy consumption was associated with the subsystems which involved the use of thermal energy, revealing that these subsystems contributed about 88.53% to the total inefficiency of the entire system.