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Using Waste Heat to Decarbonize Food Processing

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Scientists Erfan Rasouli in blue lab coat and Vinod Narayanan stand and smile in lab
Western Cooling Efficiency Center scientists Erfan Rasouli and Vinod Narayanan. (嘿嘿视频)

Whether a cell phone, air conditioner, or entire industrial facility, many of the appliances and technologies we use produce a lot of heat. This 鈥渨aste heat鈥 is warming our planet. 

About 20-50% of heat from heating and electricity generation is lost as waste heat. Zeroing in on food processing plants, a team of 嘿嘿视频 scientists is working to extract extra heat from gas streams and use it in the food and beverage industry, explains a

Engineer Erfan Rasouli and students in Bainer Hall holding the patented device. (Paul Fortunato / 嘿嘿视频)
From left, graduate student Valentina Arevalo, engineer Erfan Rasouli and graduate student Emily Fricke hold the Western Cooling Efficiency Center's patented microchannel polymer heat exchanger (MPHX) technology. (Paul Fortunato, 嘿嘿视频)

鈥淚f we can remove even one million metric ton of CO2 using our process, it鈥檚 a win for California and the United States,鈥 said , a 嘿嘿视频 professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and director of the .  

With from the U.S. Department of Energy, the interdisciplinary team includes researchers from fields such as food sciences, engineering, and marketing to create a novel microchannel polymer heat exchanger () technology. The team aims to decarbonize the industrial sector by extracting waste heat and using it for applications in the food and beverage industry, like pasteurization, further reducing energy used overall. 

鈥淪uccess in these efforts will be transformative for the food industry in terms of saving energy, reducing carbon footprint, and improving food quality, nutrition and shelf life鈥攁 win-win scenario for food systems,鈥 said a 嘿嘿视频 professor of Food Sciences and Biological and Agricultural Engineering.

 

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Kat Kerlin, 嘿嘿视频 News and Media Relations, 530-750-9195, kekerlin@ucdavis.edu 

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