Food Bioconversion

Alexandru Mihai Grumezescu, Alina Maria Holban, Alexandru Mihai Grumezescu, Alina Maria Holban

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9780128112069
• Topic: Technology & Engineering
• Subtopic: Food Science
• Index: Technology & Engineering

Food Bioconversion, Volume Two in the Handbook of Food Bioengineering series is an interdisciplinary resource of fundamental information on waste recovery and biomaterials under certain environmental conditions. The book provides information on how living organisms can be used to transform waste into compounds that can be used in food, and how specialized living cells in plants, animals and water can convert the most polluting agents into useful non-toxic products in a sustainable way. This great reference on the bioconversion of industrial waste is ideal in a time when food resources are limited and entire communities starve.

• Presents extraction techniques of biological properties to enhance food's functionality, i.e. functional foods or nutraceuticals
• Provides detailed information on waste material recovery issues
• Compares different techniques to help advance research and develop new applications
• Includes research solutions of different biological treatments to produce foods with antibiotic properties, i.e. probiotics
• Explores how bioconversion technologies are essential for research outcomes to increase high quality food production

Chapter 1

Food Waste Utilization: Green Technologies for Manufacture of Valuable Products From Food Wastes and Agricultural Wastes

C.M. Narayanan

Shrijita Das

Aditi Pandey National Institute of Technology, Durgapur, West Bengal, India

Abstract

This chapter describes commercially adaptable, green technologies that have been successfully developed for the economical utilization of food wastes and agricultural wastes, such as cheese whey and molasses. Valuable products (e.g., polymer grade lactic acid, Xanthan gum) can be economically recovered from cheese whey and molasses using well-developed biochemical processes (green technologies). These are otherwise discarded as waste effluents, thereby causing acute environmental damage on one hand and loss of valuable nutrients and materials on the other. Design and analysis of industrial bioreactors that have been recommended in this connection, such as fluidized bed, semifluidized bed, inverse fluidized bed, and downflow stationary fixed film (DSFF) bioreactors have been discussed in detail. Special emphasis has been given to mathematical modeling, simulation, and performance analysis of these bioreactors (biofilm reactors), leading to multiparameter software development.

Keywords

food waste utilization

bioplastics

cheese whey

molasses

Xanthan gum

bioreactor design

software development

1. Introduction

Food technology involves not only food synthesis and food preservation, but also efficient utilization/disposal of food wastes as well. Many value-based products can be economically recovered from different food wastes and agricultural wastes. Food technologists and chemical engineers have a very important role to play in this regard.

1.1. Types of Food Wastes and Their Utilization

An excellent example in this connection is cheese whey, which is the effluent disposed by all dairy farms and milk processing industries. Cheese whey is nothing but the mother liquor left behind after the separation of casein (fats or butter) from milk. Typically, 17 kg of milk yields 1 kg of cheese and 1 kg of whey solids. The yield of cheese whey is thus quite high. Also, it contains 50% milk solids (mostly lactose, 20% of milk proteins, and most of the vitamins and minerals). Even though 70% of the nutrient value of milk resides in cheese whey, it is mostly ...