Synergies in the co-location of food manufacturing and biorefining

Phil Sheppard,Guillermo Garcia-Garcia,Athanasios Angelis-Dimakis,Grant M Campbell,Shahin Rahimifard

doi:10.1016/j.fbp.2019.08.001

Phil Sheppard, Guillermo Garcia-Garcia + Show 3 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fbp.2019.08.001

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Abstract

In food and drink manufacturing, costs must be relentlessly minimised because margins for most products are low. At the same time, the business case for biorefining of lignocellulosic feedstocks has been positive in only a small number of cases. Since the two industries use similar feedstocks and processing equipment, there should be potential for significant sharing of resources for economic and environmental gain, particularly with regard to energy, if they were co-located. This paper reviews the nature, issues and opportunities for this sort of resource sharing between food industries and biorefineries. It then illustrates the opportunity by modelling a food product (coffee bean roasting) co-located with lignocellulosic biorefining of its downstream by-product (spent coffee grounds) where biofuels are not the target output, identifying and evaluating the resource efficiencies and economics involved. The analysis shows that there can be significant benefits, but that the exact nature of the food and biorefinery products and the biorefining pathways are the key dependencies. Further research should produce a comprehensive league table of co-location opportunities for the benefit of both industries to enhance both their economics and their sustainability metrics through well-targeted synergies.

Highlights

Introduction Both Food and drink (F&D) manufacturing andLC biorefining process organic renewable material using chemical engineering processes and equipment
Coffee roasting was selected as an exemplar F&D manufacturing process because the valorisation of spent coffee grounds (SCG) has received much research attention (e.g. Kovalcik et al, 2018) and some commercial implementation, but the benefits of co-location with coffee roasting have not been explored, and the valorisation of SCG has not been fully optimised in the applications developed to date
The balance of hot air is sent straight to the biorefinery and the afterburner is eliminated, because the Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) and ash particles can be processed in the biorefinery

Summary

Introduction

Introduction Both F&D manufacturing andLC biorefining process organic renewable material using chemical engineering processes and equipment. Biorefining for chemicals, materials and food is likely to become more targeted on specific reactants and reactions (Petridis and Smith, 2018), using biological agents, catalysts and solvents and more efficient, targeted energy sources such as microwave and laser – all amounting to the greater use of ‘precision engineering’, enabling operation at ambient and low elevated temperatures, without much waste heat. This follows the technology trend of ‘Macro-toNano’ identified in the TRIZ innovation methodology, based on many empirical observations of science and engineering innovations (Mann and Dewulf, 2002; Mann, 2007). The following analysis includes only these milder pretreatment methods, referring to them as ‘precision LC biorefining’

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