Exergy analysis: A tool to study the sustainability of food supply chains

Mild Fractionation for More Sustainable Food Ingredients

With the rising problems of food shortages, energy costs, and raw materials, the food industry must reduce its environmental impact. We present an overview of more resource-efficient processes to produce food ingredients, describing their environmental impact and the functional properties obtained. Extensive wet processing yields high purities but also has the highest environmental impact, mainly due to heating for protein precipitation and dehydration. Milder wet alternatives exclude, for example, low pH-driven separation and are based on salt precipitation or water only. Drying steps are omitted during dry fractionation using air classification or electrostatic separation. Benefits of milder methods are enhanced functional properties. Therefore, fractionation and formulation should be focused on the desired functionality instead of purity. Environmental impact is also strongly reduced by milder refining. Antinutritional factors and off-flavors remain challenges in more mildly produced ingredients. The benefits of less refining motivate the increasing trend toward mildly refined ingredients.

Performance of Exergetic, Energetic and Techno-Economic Analyses on a Gas-Type Industrial Drying System of Black Tea

The purpose of this research work is to perform detailed exergetic, energetic and techno-economic analysis of the black tea drying process in the gas-type industrial dryer. Exergy–energy and techno-economic methodology was applied to investigate the heat loss, exergetic and energetic performance, exergy efficiency, improvement potential rate, sustainability index and techno-economic performance of a drying system. The results showed that the heat loss of exhaust air in the late drying process played a main contributing role in the heat loss and exergy loss of the whole drying system. Therefore, the exergy efficiency of the initial drying period and the redrying period varied from 38.08% to 65.09% and 24.76% to 26.97%, respectively. In addition, the improvement potential rate and sustainability index of the whole system varied from 6.93 kW to 12.94 kW and 1.33 to 2.86, respectively. The improvement potential obtained in the present work indicated that the drying operation is greatly in need of exergy performance improvement. Finally, the net present value and payback period obtained from techno-economic analysis were 179,442.03 USD and 5.3 years, the result is useful for investors or contractors to refer to and make investment decisions.

Environmental effects on perishable product quality and trading under OBOR supply chain different route scenarios

The world becomes advance rapidly, and the demand of perishable food increases in the global market. Food firms perceive the cheapest supply chain process for the delivery of products to end consumers. Apart from that, consumer demands high quality and safe products with competitive price. In the global intense competition, China introduced One Belt One Road (OBOR) advanced feature supply chain management system to cut the cost of production for these product firms as well as functionally deliver high quality and green products to end consumer without affecting from high environment temperature. Respectively, the graphical research model and the multi-objective method were developed to examine the estimated perishable product trading figures with consideration to quality, which is achieved by accumulating the advanced transportation features offered by OBOR supply chain management as compared to ancient rail route supply chain. To prove this, "simulation optimization function was applied to measure the probability of time-saving for perishable product quality from environmental effects and its influences over product demand." Some perishable products were selected, and their trading figures and demand value were measured by comparing both rail route environmental effects over demand, weights of products, and trade. The results declare perishable food quality and trading volume increased due to fast delivery of products to numerous countries, having cold supply chain feature under OBOR supply chain management and estimated 25 days of time-saving. Comparative analysis discloses the coherent picture of both trading routes used for delivering the products. "The findings show large amount of time-saving maximizes perishable product quality from environmental influence" estimated 3 times higher with fast train supply chain. Conceptually, perceived from the idea, when and if maglev train 600 km over an hour will be used for perishable product supply chain purpose in the near future, the estimated quality of perishable products and trading is considered to be more than 5 times higher as compared to ancient supply chain route. The study suggests future research direction on topics, food quality along with supply chain management system, and environmental impact measurement policy under different supply chain routes.

An integrated literature review on sustainable food supply chains: Exploring research themes and future directions

The sustainable food supply chain (SFSC) is a research area of global significance. The increasing number of research articles in SFSC justifies this. With 80% of publications in SFSC coming up in the last 7 years, this field is expanding and diversifying at a rapid rate. The research on sustainable food supply chain (SFSC) covers a wide variety of areas and has a wide range of research themes in FSC. To facilitate the theoretical understanding of SFSC, we have conducted a review of the literature on SFSC. With the aim to define prominent research themes in SFSC, we follow an integrated review approach of structured literature review (SLR), bibliometric analysis, and thematic analysis. Bibliometric analysis was conducted using the vosviewer software version 1.6.16. The thematic analysis identified- "Waste management", "SC sustainability and impact assessment", "Decision support", "Operations management and optimization", "Food quality and safety", "Sustainable business models", "Innovation and technological solution", "SC strategy", and "Social sustainability" as the key emergent themes. We discuss the conceptual and theoretical basis of each of these themes. "SC sustainability and impact assessment" is identified as the most dominant theme in SFSC. Innovation and technological solution is an emerging theme with many new publications related to disruptive technologies coming up. Research in collaboration and decision theory-based approaches is important to enable sustainability in FSC. Quantifying waste streams, identifying hotspots are important future directions of research in SFSCM. Circular economy, AFSC, and the use of advanced technologies to enable circularity and sustainability also have great scope. The review aims to help researchers and academicians understand the boundaries and domain of SFSC and the future scope of these themes about how they can enhance the sustainability in SFSC.

Combining Plant Proteins to Achieve Amino Acid Profiles Adapted to Various Nutritional Objectives—An Exploratory Analysis Using Linear Programming

Although plant proteins are often considered to have less nutritional quality because of their suboptimal amino acid (AA) content, the wide variety of their sources, both conventional and emerging, suggests potential opportunities from complementarity between food sources. This study therefore aimed to explore whether, and to what extent, combinations of protein ingredients could reproduce an AA profile set as a nutritional objective, and to identify theoretical solutions and limitations. We collected compositional data on protein ingredients and raw plant foods (n = 151), and then ran several series of linear optimization to identify protein ingredient mixes that maximized the content in indispensable AA and reproduced various objective profiles: a “balanced profile,” based on AA requirements for adults; “animal profiles” corresponding to conventional animal protein compositions, and a “cardioprotective profile,” which has been associated with a lower cardiovascular risk. We assumed a very good digestibility of plant protein isolates. As expected, obtaining a balanced profile was obvious, but we also identified numerous plant protein mixtures that met demanding AA profiles. Only for particularly demanding profiles, such as mimicking a particular animal protein, did solutions require the use of protein fractions from more specific sources such as pea or canola. Optimal plant blends could mimic animal proteins such as egg white, cow milk, chicken, whey or casein with a similarity reaching 94.2, 98.8, 86.4, 92.4, and 98.0%, respectively. The limiting constraints were mainly isoleucine, lysine, and histidine target contents. These different solutions offer potential for the formulation of mixtures adapted to specific populations or the design of plant-based substitutes. Some ingredients are not commercially available but they could be developed.

From Biogas and Hydrogen to Microbial Protein Through Co-Cultivation of Methane and Hydrogen Oxidizing Bacteria

Increasing efforts are directed towards the development of sustainable alternative protein sources among which microbial protein (MP) is one of the most promising. Especially when waste streams are used as substrates, the case for MP could become environmentally favorable. The risks of using organic waste streams for MP production-the presence of pathogens or toxicants-can be mitigated by their anaerobic digestion and subsequent aerobic assimilation of the (filter-sterilized) biogas. Even though methane and hydrogen oxidizing bacteria (MOB and HOB) have been intensively studied for MP production, the potential benefits of their co-cultivation remain elusive. Here, we isolated a diverse group of novel HOB (that were capable of autotrophic metabolism), and co-cultured them with a defined set of MOB, which could be grown on a mixture of biogas and H2/O2. The combination of MOB and HOB, apart from the CH4 and CO2 contained in biogas, can also enable the valorization of the CO2 that results from the oxidation of methane by the MOB. Different MOB and HOB combinations were grown in serum vials to identify the best-performing ones. We observed synergistic effects on growth for several combinations, and in all combinations a co-culture consisting out of both HOB and MOB could be maintained during five days of cultivation. Relative to the axenic growth, five out of the ten co-cultures exhibited 1.1-3.8 times higher protein concentration and two combinations presented 2.4-6.1 times higher essential amino acid content. The MP produced in this study generally contained lower amounts of the essential amino acids histidine, lysine and threonine, compared to tofu and fishmeal. The most promising combination in terms of protein concentration and essential amino acid profile was Methyloparacoccus murrelli LMG 27482 with Cupriavidus necator LMG 1201. Microbial protein from M. murrelli and C. necator requires 27-67% less quantity than chicken, whole egg and tofu, while it only requires 15% more quantity than the amino acid-dense soybean to cover the needs of an average adult. In conclusion, while limitations still exist, the co-cultivation of MOB and HOB creates an alternative route for MP production leveraging safe and sustainably-produced gaseous substrates.

Adsorption of rapeseed proteins at oil/water interfaces. Janus-like napins dominate the interface

Plants offer a vast variety of protein extracts, typically containing multiple species of proteins that can serve as building blocks of soft materials, like emulsions. However, the role of each protein species concerning the formation of emulsions and interfaces with diverse rheological properties is still unknown. Therefore, deciphering the role of the individual proteins in an extract is highly relevant, since it determines the optimal level of purification, and hence the sustainability aspects of the extract. Here, we will show that when oil/water emulsions were prepared with a rapeseed protein extract containing napins and cruciferins (in a mass ratio of 1:1), only napins adsorbed at the interface exhibiting a soft solid-like rheological behavior. The dominance of napins at the interface was ascribed to their small size (radius r = 1.7 nm) and its unique Janus-like structure, as 45% of the amino acids are hydrophobic and primarily located at one side of the protein. Cruciferins with a bigger size (r = 4.4 nm) and a more homogeneous distribution of the hydrophobic domains couldn't reach the interface, but they appear to just weakly interact with the adsorbed layer of napins.

Environmental Sustainability Assessment of Spatial Entities with Anthropogenic Activities-Evaluation of Existing Methods

The aim of this study is to evaluate the existing available methods that can potentially be applied to anthropogenic spatial entities to access their environmental sustainability. The paper offers an overview of existing sustainability assessment methods, discusses their adequacy, and evaluates their efficiency to assess the environmental sustainability of anthropogenic spatial entities. From a list of sixty-one (61) sustainability assessment methods for spatial entities with anthropogenic activities that had been identified and examined, thirteen (13) methods were selected to be assessed based on specific exclusion criteria set. The thirteen methods were further classified into four categories, namely, (1) Indicators/Indices, (2) Resource Availability Assessment, (3) Material and Energy Flow Analysis, and (4) Life-Cycle Assessment, and then these methods were evaluated using specific evaluation criteria. The “Resource Availability Assessment” category, and particularly the “Ecological Footprint” method, was indicated as the most appropriate method to assess the environmental sustainability of anthropogenic spatial entities.

Environmental sustainability assessments of pharmaceuticals: an emerging need for simplification in life cycle assessments

The pharmaceutical and fine chemical industries are eager to strive toward innovative products and technologies. This study first derives hotspots in resource consumption of 2839 Basic Operations in 40 Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient synthesis steps through Exergetic Life Cycle Assessment (ELCA). Second, since companies are increasingly obliged to quantify the environmental sustainability of their products, two alternative ways of simplifying (E)LCA are discussed. The usage of averaged product group values (R(2) = 3.40 × 10(-30)) is compared with multiple linear regression models (R(2) = 8.66 × 10(-01)) in order to estimate resource consumption of synthesis steps. An optimal set of predictor variables is postulated to balance model complexity and embedded information with usability and capability of merging models with existing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) data systems. The amount of organic solvents used, molar efficiency, and duration of a synthesis step were shown to be the most significant predictor variables. Including additional predictor variables did not contribute to the predictive power and eventually weakens the model interpretation. Ideally, an organization should be able to derive its environmental impact from readily available ERP data, linking supply chains back to the cradle of resource extraction, excluding the need for an approximation with product group averages.

Cumulative exergy extraction from the natural environment (CEENE): a comprehensive life cycle impact assessment method for resource accounting

The objective of the paper is to establish a comprehensive resource-based life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) method which is scientifically sound and that enables to assess all kinds of resources that are deprived from the natural ecosystem, all quantified on one single scale, free of weighting factors. The method is based on the exergy concept. Consistent exergy data on fossils, nuclear and metal ores, minerals, air, water, land occupation, and renewable energy sources were elaborated, with well defined system boundaries. Based on these data, the method quantifies the exergy "taken away" from natural ecosystems, and is thus called the cumulative exergy extraction from the natural environment (CEENE). The acquired data set was coupled with a state-of-the art life cycle inventory database, ecoinvent. In this way, the method is able to quantitatively distinguish eight categories of resources withdrawn from the natural environment: renewable resources, fossil fuels, nuclear energy, metal ores, minerals, water resources, land resources, and atmospheric resources. Third, the CEENE method is illustrated for a number of products that are available in ecoinvent, and results are compared with common resource oriented LCIA methods. The application to the materials in the ecoinvent database showed that fossil resources and land use are of particular importance with regard to the total CEENE score, although the other resource categories may also be significant.