Frequent cleaning of a milk plant’s processing equipment and piping system is necessary to keep the milk fresh-tasting and to abide by the FDA’s Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. To ensure sanitary conditions, the inner surfaces of the pasteurized equipment and pipes are cleaned once per day, and raw milk storage tanks every 72 hours. Because of this rigorous schedule, more than half of a milk processing plant’s energy use is devoted to cleaning equipment and pipes.
Opportunity: reduce energy-intensive cleaning
Traditional cleaning methods are energy intensive because they use high-temperature heat. Emerging technologies are enabling reduced temperature cleaning that can lower a processing plant’s fuel demands and greenhouse gas emissions by up to 15 percent.
Solution: reduced temperature cleaning technologies
The Next Generation Cleaning project is facilitating the evaluation, pilot testing and commercialization of low temperature processing plant cleaning technologies throughout the U.S. and around the world.
The benefits of reduced temperature cleaning technologies include easy installation, no changes to the monitoring systems, less rinse water and less waste. While the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance has no minimum temperature requirements for cleaning, the industry still has technical issues to overcome that require cooperative problem-solving among the industry and processors.
Collaborators: NGOs + processors + industry
There are currently 15 team members exploring the potential application of Next Generation Cleaning, including International Dairy Foods Association, General Mills, Ecolab, Tetra Pak, HP Hood, LALA USA and Grassland Dairy Products.
Project goals and milestones
The dairy processing segment of the U.S. dairy supply chain contributes 5.7 percent to the fluid milk carbon footprint. Next Generation Cleaning will help achieve the Dairy 2020 goal to reduce this by 25 percent.
The team of industry experts will help develop assessments and models to encourage the adoptions of reduced temperature cleaning among the 395 fluid milk plants in the U.S.
Phase 1: Pilot Tests of Reduced-Temperature Technologies
Pilot tests were conducted, and initial results indicate 40 percent to 50 percent energy reduction in cleaning (5 percent to 15 percent of total energy) by lowering the temperature. 2010-2011
Phase 2: Modeling of Dairy Plant Energy
The team will model a typical milk plant’s energy usage to determine the carbon footprint of a single plant. This will give a baseline for measuring the impact of a reduced-temperature cleaning system. 2011
Phase 3: Conduct Feasibility Assessments
The team will meter energy use and cost savings of a
Next Generation Cleaning system, and compare them with traditional cleaning methods. Results will be shared with processors to demonstrate the value of adopting a reduced temperature cleaning system. 2011