TY - JOUR
T1 - Life cycle assessment of emerging technologies
T2 - The case of milk ultra-high pressure homogenisation
AU - Valsasina, Lucia
AU - Pizzol, Massimo
AU - Smetana, Sergiy
AU - Georget, Erika
AU - Mathys, Alexander
AU - Heinz, Volker
PY - 2017/1/20
Y1 - 2017/1/20
N2 - Milk is becoming a key food commodity as population grows and demand increases. The treatment of milk to extend its shelf life is thus an important step in avoiding losses and optimizing resource use. The drawbacks of the most common treatments for shelf stable milk are the loss of nutritional values and high energy consumption. Ultra-high pressure homogenisation (UHPH) is an emerging technology relying on dynamic pressure up to 400 MPa. The combination of high pressure, temperature, shear, cavitation and impingement can provide commercially sterile milk of higher quality and longer shelf life. A life cycle assessment was performed comparing this emerging technology to the common thermal treatment: indirect ultra-high temperature sterilisation combined with non-aseptic homogenisation. The results show that high-pressure based processing has a lower environmental burden compared to the high-temperature based processing, already at pilot-scale, and this difference is primarily due to the lower electricity consumption. Additionally, upscaling considerations were made using power laws and scenario analysis to simulate future full-scale applications of UHPH. The upscaling shows that a decrease in carbon footprint up to 88% is achievable with improvements in efficiency. UHPH could, therefore, represent a substitute for existing practices considering its technological readiness level and potential synergies when integrated into industrial scale production lines.
AB - Milk is becoming a key food commodity as population grows and demand increases. The treatment of milk to extend its shelf life is thus an important step in avoiding losses and optimizing resource use. The drawbacks of the most common treatments for shelf stable milk are the loss of nutritional values and high energy consumption. Ultra-high pressure homogenisation (UHPH) is an emerging technology relying on dynamic pressure up to 400 MPa. The combination of high pressure, temperature, shear, cavitation and impingement can provide commercially sterile milk of higher quality and longer shelf life. A life cycle assessment was performed comparing this emerging technology to the common thermal treatment: indirect ultra-high temperature sterilisation combined with non-aseptic homogenisation. The results show that high-pressure based processing has a lower environmental burden compared to the high-temperature based processing, already at pilot-scale, and this difference is primarily due to the lower electricity consumption. Additionally, upscaling considerations were made using power laws and scenario analysis to simulate future full-scale applications of UHPH. The upscaling shows that a decrease in carbon footprint up to 88% is achievable with improvements in efficiency. UHPH could, therefore, represent a substitute for existing practices considering its technological readiness level and potential synergies when integrated into industrial scale production lines.
KW - Food supply and waste
KW - High-pressure based processing
KW - Sterile milk
KW - Upscaling
U2 - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.11.059
DO - 10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.11.059
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85006826666
SN - 0959-6526
VL - 142
SP - 2209
EP - 2217
JO - Journal of Cleaner Production
JF - Journal of Cleaner Production
ER -