Energy Conversion and Management xxx (2017) xxxxxx

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Energy Conversion and Management

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Energy and exergy analysis of a milk powder production system

Nurdan Yildirim a,, Seda Genc b
a
Faculty of Engineering, Department of Energy Systems Engineering, Yasar University, Izmir, Turkey
b
Vocational School, Department of Food Processing, Yasar University, Izmir, Turkey

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Milk has been consumed since time immemorial because of its unique nutritional properties and pro-
Received 7 December 2016 duced almost 816 million tonnes in the year of 2016. Due to its highly perishable characteristic, milk
Received in revised form 20 January 2017 is processed into more stable milk products such as cheese, yoghurt, and butter and milk powder.
Accepted 26 January 2017
Among them, milk powder is distinctive for its longer shelf life and can be stored at ambient temperature.
Available online xxxx
The other advantages of milk powder are less volume requirement during its transportation and higher
selling price. Therefore, it is widely used in many food products such as ice cream, bakery products, and
Keywords:
sausages. According to a recent study on the statistics from Food and Agriculture Organization, world
Milk powder
Energy
production of whole dried milk was 3,597,015 tonnes in 2014: Oceania 36.5%, Americas 36.1% and
Exergy Europe 24.1% of the World production.
Evaporator Milk powder production is a process that requires high energy, especially for evaporation. Recently,
Spray dryer reducing energy use has been gaining importance by increasing energy and exergy efficiency.
Geothermal Conventional energy analysis is performed based on the First Law of Thermodynamics. Unlike from the
First Law, the Second Law or exergy analysis (defined as useful work) has appeared in the literature, while
this analysis not only assesses quantity but also quality of energy. In this study, exergy analysis of a milk
powder production system, mainly includes 3 processes (pasteurization, evaporation and spray drying)
which will be presented. The aim of the study is to apply a thermodynamic analysis including compre-
hensive exergy analysis by using different performance parameters such as exergy efficiency, improve-
ment potential rate, sustainability index, relative irreversibility and exergetic factor for the milk
powder production system. As a result, exergetic efficiencies of the system components were found in
the range of 983%. The overall energy and exergy efficiencies of the whole milk powder production sys-
tem were calculated as 85.4 and 57.45%, respectively. Additionally, it was found that the evaporator and
the heater have a higher impact in improvement actions.
2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Milk and milk products are among the Worlds major food prod-
ucts, consumed by millions of people from all over the World on an
everyday basis. The World total milk production is forecasted as
816 million tonnes in 2016 [1]. Because of milks perishable char-
acteristics, it is processed as in other products (such as cheese,
butter, and yoghurt) for not only new product design but also
add-value to the product. Additionally, dairies use their surplus
milk to transport it to other parts of the World where local demand
outstrips supply. In this case, milk powder production would be
one of the best options for both having longer shelf life and lower
transportation cost.
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: nurdan.yildirim@yasar.edu.tr (N. Yildirim), seda.genc@yasar.
edu.tr (S. Genc).
Turkey is the 10th largest milk producer in the World. Total raw
milk and milk powder production of Turkey was 18.5 million ton-
nes and 182,868 tonnes in 2014, respectively. Izmir province, hav-
ing very rich geothermal resources, is the 2nd largest milk producer
[2].
Fluid milk and milk products are produced through applying
thermal treatments such as heating and cooling which requires
significant amount of energy. Hence, energy consumption is a cru-
cial issue in dairy industry for both economic and environmental
point of view. The dairy industry is an energy intensive sector
and has a significant capability for energy efficiency. Thereof,
increasing energy utilization efficiency of dairy industry and
adapting renewable energy sources to the milk manufacturing
lines, can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect global
environment [3].
Demand for non-renewable energy resources have been
increasing day by day and the current situation indicates that fossil

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.01.064
0196-8904/ 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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2 N. Yildirim, S. Genc / Energy Conversion and Management xxx (2017) xxxxxx
Nomenclature
Cp specific heat (kJ/kg K)
ex specific exergy (kJ/kg)
E_ energy rate (kW)
Ex_ exergy rate (kW)
f exergetic factor (%)
h specific enthalpy (kJ/kg)
_
IP improvement potential rate (kW)
m_ mass flow rate (kg/s)
P pressure (kPa)
Q_ heat transfer rate (kW)
R gas constant (kJ/kg K)
RI relative irreversibility (%)
s specific entropy (kJ/kg K)
SI sustainability index ()
T temperature (K or C)
_ out
W rate of work or power (kW)
x mole fraction
Y mass fraction
Greek letters
e exergetic (the second law) efficiency (%)
q density (kg/m3)
fuel reserves will be not enough for the near future [4]. Therefore,
utilization of renewable energy resources such as solar energy,
wind energy, biomass is inevitable [5].
Geothermal energy, heat derived from the earth, is one of the
renewable energy resources having extensive application area for
both residential and industrial utilizations such as space heating,
greenhouse and open heating, aquaculture pond and race heating,
industrial process heating, agricultural drying, snow melting and
cooling.
The Worlds direct utilization of geothermal energy at the end
of 2014 was 70,329 MWt. This amounts to energy saving of about
52.5 million tonnes of equivalent oil annually preventing 46 mil-
lion tonnes of carbon and 148 million tonnes of carbon dioxide that
would have otherwise been released into the atmosphere [6].
Turkey has a lot of potential geothermal resources ranging from
low to high enthalpy and Turkey has the Worlds fourth largest
direct use installed capacity (2,886 MWt) [6]. The most of the
geothermal energy resources of Turkey are used for electricity gen-
eration, residential and greenhouse heating and balneological
applications. However, direct use of geothermal energy for the
industry in Turkey is still much lower than some developed coun-
tries such as America, Iceland, Japan and New Zealand.
Unlike from the most of the renewable energy sources, geother-
mal energy can be used directly in a variety of applications, where
the combination of a variety of applications in the synergies and
chain system can be called as a cascading or combined system. In
general, there is brine from a separator in existing power plants,
which still contains high heat, but unfortunately, the residual heat
from the brine has not been utilized. The hot brine is injected
directly back into the well. Whereas the hot brine can be used
for various direct use applications before injected to the well.
The required heat of dairy industry can be extracted from geother-
mal brine. Sustainable food production and processing is increas-
ingly gaining global prominence. Because of intense thermal
energy requirement of dairy industry, geothermal energy can
become an alternative solution from sustainability point of view
[7].
Milk powder (also called as dried milk) is one of the foodstuff of
dairy industry. It is produced by dehydrating water found in milk
Please cite this article in press as: Yildirim N, Genc S. Energy and exergy analysis of a milk powder production system. Energy Convers Manage (2017),
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g thermal efficiency (%)
x humidity ratio of air (kg water vapor/kg dry air)
m specific volume (m3/kg)
Supercripts
ph physical
Subscripts
D destruction
f saturated liquid state, fuel
g saturated vapor state
i numerator
in input
k location
output
p product
0 reference environment
rev reversible
tot total
v vapor
using several processes. The aim of producing milk powder is to
have longer shelf life and store it in room temperature [8]. Among
milk products, whole milk powder is an important product used in
confectionary, chocolate industry, ice cream, etc. and all over the
World. In 2014, 3,6 million tonnes of whole milk powder were pro-
duced and five export countries of whole milk powder ranged as
New Zealand, Brazil, Argentina, France and, Mexico, respectively
[9].
Drying, is a staple unit operation, used in a various production
industry such as chemical, pharmaceutical, textile, paper, food
and many others. Drying process operation involves a consequen-
tial percentage of industrial energy utilization [10]. Energy con-
sumption from drying accounts for about 18% of total energy
usage in the UK [11]. According to a survey performed in the UK
in 2000, the average energy consumption/use for all dryers was
found as 4.87 GJ/t and the results of this survey indicates that
around 29% of the energy supplied to the dryers was lost as a waste
energy [12].
Spray drying is one of the well-known drying techniques in
dairy industry, which is especially used for large scale production
of milk powder. During spray drying operation, liquid state feed
is turned into a solid-state product by spraying the liquid into a
hot air environment [10]. During milk powder production, the
water in the milk is removed by boiling the milk under reduced
pressure at low temperature in a process known as evaporation.
In the evaporator, the preheated milk is boiled under a vacuum
at temperature around 80 C and it is concentrated up to 4555%
dry weight. The resulting concentrated milk is then fed to the spray
drier, where it is atomized into fine droplets. The spray drier is
composed of a large drying chamber containing hot air flow and
the water content of milk droplets are reduced by evaporation of
remaining water thus forming a fine powder with around 3.56%
moisture content [13]. Fig. 1 shows the general flowsheet for the
milk powder production process.
Milk powder production process mainly utilizes electrical and
thermal energy, where the largest consumer of electrical energy
is the dryer (24%) and the largest consumer of thermal energy
are the dryer (52%) and the evaporator (39%) [14]. Thermal
processes constitute around 15% of total energy use in the dairy
 N. Yildirim, S. Genc / Energy Conversion and Management xxx (2017) xxxxxx
Fig. 1. The general flowsheet for milk powder production process.
industry. The current total energy consumption for skimmed milk
powder production is found approximately 10 MJ/kg powder [15].
Exergy is defined as available work and based on the First and
Second Law of Thermodynamics. In contrast to energy conserva-
tion (the First Law of Thermodynamics), exergy is not conserved
during process (the Second Law of Thermodynamic) [16]. Exergy
analysis is considered an effective tool to assess systems perfor-
mances and this analysis provides a measure of quality of energy
and indicates energy losses and their locations by giving exergy
destructions and exergetic efficiencies of a system of interest.
Therefore, exergy analysis has become an important tool to evalu-
ate sustainability of food processes and in recent years, it was
applied on various food processes to assess system performance.
In literature, the most studies about geothermal energy are gen-
erally focused on power generation [17], heating and cooling sys-
tems [18] and ground (geothermal) source heat pump systems
[19,20]. For example, Esen et al. [21] studied energy and exergy
analysis of a ground-coupled heat pump system (GCHPS), buried
with in 1 and 2 m. depth of horizontal ground heat exchangers.
Additionally, the effect of dead state temperature was investigated.
Genc and Hepbasli [22] assessed the exergetic performance of
potato crisp frying process including three stages: the combustor,
the heat exchanger and the fryer. The universal exergetic efficiency
values of the stages were calculated as 58, 82 and 77%, respec-
tively. In another study, Kavak-Akpnar [23] applied exergy analy-
sis to the drying process of mint leaves by using solar drier and
open sun. The exergy efficiency of the cabinet was found between
34.76 and 87.72% depending on time and solar drying chamber
energy utilization ratio. Erbay and Hepbasli [24] performed con-
ventional and advanced exergy analysis to the system of ground
source heat pump drier, the condenser, and the evaporator were
found to be the most important system components in terms of
conventional exergy analysis. In the case of milk industry, Yildirim
and Genc [25] studied thermodynamic analysis of a milk pasteur-
ization process assisted by geothermal energy. The exergetic effi-
ciency of the milk pasteurization process was found to be in the
range of 22.6156.81% for various geothermal resource tempera-
ture. Furthermore, Jokandan et al. [26] applied comprehensive
exergy analysis of an industrialscale yogurt production plant con-
taining four main subsystems of steam generation, above-zero
refrigeration, milk standardization and pasteurization. They found
that the boiler and air compressor couple, one of the steam gener-
ator components, has the lowest exergy efficiency with 8.48%.
Erbay and Koca [27] investigated an energetic, exergetic and exer-
goeconomic performances of white cheese powder production for
different atomization pressures, inlet and outlet drying air temper-
atures. Exergetic efficiency of the system was found in the range of
2.666%. Munir et al. [28] evaluated a milk powder plant as a case
study located in New Zealand by applying energy and exergy anal-
yses. The exergy efficiency values of the system components were
calculated in the range of 3699%, where the drier has the lowest
and the milk silo has the highest value.
To the best of authors knowledge, a detailed energy and exergy
analysis of a milk powder production system has never been
applied before. Therefore, aim of this study is to perform a compre-
Please cite this article in press as: Yildirim N, Genc S. Energy and exergy analysis of a milk powder production system. Energy Convers Manage (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.01.064
3
hensive energy and exergy analyses on a milk powder production
system assisted by geothermal energy. Exergy destruction rates
and energy and exergy efficiencies of each components of the milk
powder production system were calculated to be able to improve
the performance of the process.
2. Description of the system
Fig. 2 illustrates a schematic diagram of the milk powder pro-
duction line including mainly eight units, (I) the evaporator, (II)
the feed pump, (III) the spray drier, (IV) the cooler, (V) the econo-
mizer, (VI) the fan, (VII) the heater, and (VIII) the compressor. In
this regard, thermal energy needed for the production line is pro-
vided by using geothermal energy.
In this system, pasteurized whole milk (stream 1) is fed to the
evaporator to decrease water content of milk by the help of
geothermal fluids energy. The concentrated milk (stream 2) leaves
the evaporator at the same temperature with a dry matter content
of 50% and is pumped to the single stage spray drier (stream 3). The
milk powder (stream 4) obtained after spray-drying process comes
in contact with air at dead state condition (stream 6) to cool down
by transferring its heat to the air. Then the cooled milk powder
(stream 5) goes to the packaging unit. Meanwhile, the preheated
air (stream 7) is fed to the economizer for heating up by transfer-
ring heat of humidified exit air (stream 10) from the spray drier.
Then, the air (stream 8) goes through fan and is fed (stream 9) to
the heater both for heating and dehumidifying purposes by using
geothermal fluid. The hot dry air (stream 12) is divided in two
streams, one stream (stream 13) is used for drying purpose and
the other (stream 14) is fed to the compressor and used for atomiz-
ing the concentrated milk (stream 3) into the spray drier.
3. Modeling
The fundamental mass, energy and exergy balance equations
are carried out to the system and exergy destructions and exergetic
efficiencies are calculated in which the system is at steady state
and steady flow process. In general, the mass, energy and exergy
balance equations can be expressed in the rate form as [16]:
X X
_ in
m _ out
m 1
X X
E_ in E_ out 2
where
E_ m
_ h 3
with all energy terms it becomes
X X X X
Q_ _ in hin
m _
W _ out hout
m 4
The overall energy efficiency of the whole system is calculated by
following equation.
E_ E_ E_ E_
g _ 5 _ 11 _ 19 _ 21 _ 5
W tot E1 E6 E18 E20
4 N. Yildirim, S. Genc / Energy Conversion and Management xxx (2017) xxxxxx

Fig. 2. Schematic diagram of the milk powder production line.

The general exergy balance equation is defined in the rate form as exair cp;air x  cp;v T  T 0
X X X  
_ in  _ out _D T P
Ex Ex Ex 6  T 0 cp;air x  cp;v ln  Rair xRv ln
T0 P0
    
or 1 1:6078x0 x
T 0 Rair xRv ln 1:6078xRair ln
X X X 
T0 _ X 1 1:6078x x0
m_ in exin  _ out exout
m 1 Qk  _
W
Tk 14
X
_D
Ex 7  
Pg;0
where exwater hf  hg;0 v f P  Pg  T 0 sf  sg;0 T 0 Rv ln
xv ;0 P0
_ m
Ex _  ex 8 15

The specific heat capacities and specific volumes of streams based

where 0 denotes the reference environment of the system.
on their composition (given in Table 1) are computed according to
The performance indicators used in exergy analysis, namely
Eqs. (9) and (10) [29]:
X _ relative irre-
exergy efficiency, improvement potential rate (IP),
cp Y i cp;i 9 versibility (RI), exergetic factor (f) and sustainability index (SI) of
i the components and the whole system are applied to assess the
X Yi performance of the system. Generally, the system performance is
v 10 increased by reducing exergy destruction. Beside exergy efficiency
i
qi _ (Eq. (17)) is used to make feasible betterment in each
(Eq. (16)), IP
The exergy of product, air and water are calculated as follows [30]: component throughout the system. RI (Eq. (18)) is the ratio of
exergy destruction in the system component to the total destruc-
exph h  h0  T 0 s  s0 11 tion in the system, where f (Eq. (19)) demonstrates relative impor-
tance of the fuel exergy of each system component on total
h  h0 cp T  T 0 12 exergetic fuel. The last one SI displays the effect of exergy effi-
ciency change on sustainability (Eq. (20)) [31].
s  s0 cp lnT=T 0  R lnP=P0 13 All performance indicators are defined as follows [31]:

Table 1
Specific heat capacities and densities of streams as a function of temperature (C) and composition of streams used in
the calculation [29].

Composition Specific heat capacity equation Density equation

Carbohydrate cp 1:5488 1:9625
103
T  5:9399
106
T2 q 1:5991  103  3:1046
10 T
Protein cp 2:0082 1:2089
103 T  1:3129 2
106
T q 1:3299  103  5:184
10 T
Fat cp 1:9842 1:4733
103
T  4:8008
106 T2 q 9:2559  102  4:1757
10 T
Ash cp 1:0926 1:8896
103
T  3:6817 2
106
T q 2:4238  103  2:8063
10 T
Water cp 4:1762  9:0864
105
T 5:4731
106
T2 q 9:9718  102 3:1439
103
T  3:7574
103
T2

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Table 2
Equations used for exergy efficiencies of the system components.

Components _ p
Exergy rate of the products Ex _ f
Exergy rate of the fuels Ex

I Evaporator Ex _ 2
_ 1  Ex _ 17 Ex
Ex _ 18  Ex
_ 19
II Feed pump _ 3  Ex
Ex _ 2 W_ feedpump e
III Spray drier m_ 4 m_ 5 exw;10  exw;3 _ 13 Ex
Ex _ 15
IV Cooler _ 4  Ex
Ex _ 5 _ 7  Ex
Ex _ 6
V Economizer _ 8  Ex
Ex _ 7 _ 10  Ex
Ex _ 11
VI Fan _ 9  Ex
Ex _ 8 W_ fan
VII Heater _
Ex12  Ex_ 9 Ex
_ 16 _
Ex20  Ex_ 21
VIII Compressor _ 15  Ex
Ex _ 14 _ comp
W
Whole system _ total Ex
W _ 1 Ex
_ 6 Ex
_ 18 Ex
_ 20 _ 5 Ex
Ex _ 11 Ex
_ 19 Ex
_ 21

_
Ex (m) 70% of hot dry air stream (stream 12) is considered to be
e _p 16 used for drying purpose (stream 13) and the rest of the air
Exf
(stream 14) is compressed and used for atomizing the con-
_ f  Ex
_ 1  eEx _ p centrated milk (stream 3) into the spray drier.
IP 17
(n) The temperature and pressure of geothermal resource is
_ D;k assumed as 110 C and 1167 kPa, respectively.
Ex
RIk  100 18
_ D;tot
Ex
4. Results
Ex_ f ;k
fk  100 19
_ f ;tot
Ex In this study, comprehensive energy and exergy analyses of
milk powder production line by using geothermal fluid was con-
1 ducted. The exergy destruction and exergetic performance indica-
SI 20 tors of each component and the whole system were estimated for
1e
processing of 1 kg/s pasteurized milk. The thermodynamic proper-
Exergy rate of the fuels and products for each system components ties of the operating condition points shown in Fig. 2, are tabulated
and the whole system are summarized in Table 2. in Table 3.
The milk powder production system is modelled using Engi- The results of the energy capacities of each component are tab-
neering Equation Solver (EES) Software package [32]. ulated in Table 4. The greatest heat capacity on the system occurs
Throughout this study, the following assumptions are made: in the evaporator (1747 kW), followed by the heater (307.9 kW).
The exergetic performance indicators for the system compo-
(a) The whole process and its components are at steady state nents and the whole system were computed defined as Eqs.
condition. (16)(20) and presented in Table 5. As seen from Table 5, the cooler
(b) The signs of work transfer from the system and heat transfer has the maximum exergetic efficiency with 82.4% and the heater
to the system are considered positive. has the lowest exergetic efficiency (9.7%). Additionally, the evapo-
(c) The pressure and heat losses in the pipelines and the system rator has the highest exergetic factor (76.14%), followed by the
components (evaporator, spray drier, cooler, economizer, heater (8.73%) and the spray drier (6.33%) meaning that evaporator
fan, heater, and condenser) are neglected. manages the highest amount of exergy.
(d) The chemical exergies of milk, air and geothermal water are On the other hand, the feed pump and the cooler do not have a
not taken into account. substantial contribution overall system efficiency since they have
(e) The reference environment conditions are taken as low exergetic factor values of around 0%. The highest IP _
T0 = 25 C, P0 = 101.325 kPa, x0 = 0.002 kg water vapor/kg (191.1 kW) was found for the evaporator. The heater and the spray
dry air and xm,0 = 0. 003211. drier follow the evaporator with IP values of 54.4 kW and 9.3 kW,
(f) The dry air temperature (stream 12) is taken as 10 C less respectively. Furthermore, the evaporator has the highest RI value
than geothermal fluid inlet temperature (stream 20). (75.8%), followed by the heater, the spray drier and the compres-
(g) The exergies of Stream 16 and 17 are not taken into sor. RI values of the feed pump, the cooler, the economizer and
account during overall exergy efficiency calculation since the fan are lower than 1.5%. On the other side, the cooler and the
these streams are considered inside the system economizer have high SI values of 5.67 and 4.49, respectively.
boundary. The heater, the evaporator and the fan seem to need improvement
(h) The temperature difference of inlet and outlet of geothermal as their SI values are computed lower than 2.
fluid is 5 C for the heater. Overall energy and exergetic efficiencies of the whole system
(i) The temperature of milk at the evaporator inlet and outlet is were calculated as 85.4% and 57.45% according to Eqs. (5) and
taken as 76 C. (16), respectively.
(j) Outlet temperature of geothermal fluid is taken as 5 C To increase performance of the system, the irreversibilities, in
higher than evaporating temperature at the evaporator. other words exergy destruction rates of the system should be min-
(k) The inlet air (stream 6) temperature is assumed to be equal imized. For that reason, the exergy destruction rate of each compo-
to dead (reference) state temperature. nent is investigated and improvements starts with the component
(l) The moisture contents of concentrated milk (stream 1 and having maximum exergy destruction rate. In the considered sys-
stream 2), and milk powder (stream 5) are considered as tem, the evaporator has the highest (333.60 kW) exergy destruc-
87.69%, 50% and 4%, respectively. tion rate and relative irreversibility (75.8%) (Figs. 3 and 4).

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Table 3
Thermodynamic properties of the milk powder production system at operating conditions.

Point Fluid Temperature Pressure Mass flowrate Specific enthalpy Specific exergy Energy rate Exergy rate
(C) (kPa) (kg/s) (kJ/kg) (kJ/kg) (kW) (kW)
1 Milk 76.0 101.3 1.0000 296.5 290.0 296.5 290.0
2 Milk 76.0 101.3 0.2462 230.2 168.5 56.7 41.5
3 Milk 76.04 207.6 0.2462 230.3 168.6 56.7 41.5
4 Milk powder 90.0 101.3 0.1269 175.9 21.5 22.3 2.7
5 Milk powder 40.0 101.3 0.1269 76.1 10.1 9.7 1.3
6 Humid air 25.0 101.3 1.0470 30.2 0.0 31.6 0.0
7 Humid air 37.0 101.3 1.0470 42.3 1.7 44.3 1.7
8 Humid air 70.0 101.3 1.0470 75.6 8.2 79.2 8.6
9 Humid air 81.1 105.0 1.0470 86.8 13.7 90.9 14.4
10 Humid air 90.0 101.3 1.1640 395.4 57.4 460.2 66.9
11 Humid air 65.5 101.3 1.1640 365.4 49.8 425.3 58.0
12 Dry air 100.0 105.0 1.0450 377.0 19.3 393.8 20.1
13 Dry air 100.0 105.0 0.7312 377.0 19.3 275.6 14.1
14 Dry air 100.0 105.0 0.3134 377.0 19.3 118.1 6.0
15 Dry air 200.0 207.6 0.3134 484.7 109.4 151.9 34.3
16 Water vapor 81.1 101.3 0.0021 2305.0 332.9 4.8 0.7
17 Water vapor 76.0 101.3 0.7538 2637.0 329.6 1988.0 248.5
18 Geothermal fluid 110.0 1167.0 14.3100 462.1 44.0 6615.0 629.1
19 Geothermal fluid 81.0 1167.0 14.3100 340.0 20.7 4867.0 295.6
20 Geothermal fluid 110.0 1167.0 14.5700 462.1 44.0 6734.0 640.5
21 Geothermal fluid 105.0 1167.0 14.5700 441.0 39.4 6426.0 573.8

Table 4
Main results of the system parameters for the operating condi-
tions, listed in Table 1.

Parameter Value (kW)

Evaporator heat capacity 1747
Feed pump power 0.031
Heat loss of the spray drier 1.763
Cooler heat capacity 12.67
Economizer heat capacity 34.89
Fan power 11.72
Heater heat capacity 307.9
Compressor power 45

Firstly, the effect of the resource temperature (which is geother-

mal fluid inlet temperature in the range between 90 and 150 C) on
the exergy destruction rate of evaporator and overall energy and
exergy efficiencies of the whole system is analysed and the results
are shown in Fig. 5. While the evaporating temperature of the milk
is taken as constant at 76 C (T1 and T2), outlet temperature of the
geothermal fluid (T19) is considered as 81 C (which is assumed
5 C higher than evaporating temperature) and the required Fig. 3. Exergy destruction fraction of the system components.
geothermal fluid flow rate (m _ 19 ) is determined for constant
_ 18 and m
evaporating demand of the milk at the evaporator. By increasing
inlet temperature of geothermal fluid at evaporator (T18), the increasing geothermal fluid inlet temperature (T18), the energy rate
required flow rate of the geothermal fluid decreases. The overall of stream 18 increases but stream 19 decreases. As a result, the
energy efficiency of the whole system mostly depends on energy overall energy efficiency of the whole system decreases with
rates of the geothermal fluid at the evaporator. Therefore, with increasing geothermal fluid inlet temperature. It is clearly seen

Table 5
Exergy destruction and exergetic performance indicators of the system components and the whole system.

Component _ f (kW)
Ex _ p (kW)
Ex _ d (kW)
Ex e (%) _ (kW)
IP f (%) RI (%) SI ()
# Name
I Evaporator 582.0 248.5 333.5 42.7 191.1 76.14 75.8 1.75
II Feed pump 0.0 0.0 0.0 55.7 0.0 0.00 0.0 2.26
III Spray drier 48.4 27.2 21.2 56.2 9.3 6.33 4.8 2.28
IV Cooler 1.7 1.4 0.3 82.4 0.1 0.22 0.1 5.67
V Economizer 8.8 6.9 2.0 77.7 0.4 1.16 0.4 4.49
VI Fan 11.7 5.7 6.0 48.9 3.1 1.53 1.4 1.96
VII Heater 66.7 6.5 60.2 9.7 54.4 8.73 13.7 1.11
VIII Compressor 45.0 28.3 16.7 62.8 6.2 5.89 3.8 2.69
IVIII 764.4 324.4 440.0 57.5 292.3 100.00 100.0 2.35

Please cite this article in press as: Yildirim N, Genc S. Energy and exergy analysis of a milk powder production system. Energy Convers Manage (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.01.064
 N. Yildirim, S. Genc / Energy Conversion and Management xxx (2017) xxxxxx 7

Fig. 4. Grassmann diagram of the milk powder production process assisted by geothermal energy.

450 100 is 16.64 MJ/kg milk powder. Additionally, 7.9 kg milk and
227.7 kg geothermal fluid are necessary to obtain 1 kg milk
Exergy Destruction Rate of the

400 90
350 80 powder.
Overall Efficiency (%)
Evaporator (kW)

300 70
60
250
50 5. Conclusions
200
40
150 30
Exergy Destruction Rate In this study, energy and exergy analyses has been carried out
100 20
Overall Exergy Efficiency to a milk powder production system. The main conclusions
50 10
Overall Energy Efficiency depending on the results of the present study are listed as follows:
0 0
90 95 100 105 110 115 120 125 130 135 140 145 150
(a) The most of exergy is destructed in the evaporator with a
Geothermal Fluid Inlet Temperature to the Evaporator (C )
value of 333.60 kW having 75.86% of the whole system
Fig. 5. Effect of the geothermal fluid temperature on energy and exergy efficiencies exergy destruction rate. Because most of the energy is con-
of the whole system and exergy destruction rate of the evaporator. sumed at the evaporator due to decrease the water content
of milk from 87.89% to 50%. These results point out that
the evaporator has higher improvement capacity in the
system.
Table 6 (b) The evaporator has the highest IP_ (191.1 kW) followed by
The requirement of geothermal fluid and milk mass and energy per kg milk powder the heater (54.4 kW) and the spray drier (9.3).
production in a second. (c) The heater, the evaporator and the fan seem to need
Property Value Unit improvement as their SI values were computed lower than
Milk powder 1 (kg) 2, while the cooler and the economizer have high SI values
Milk 7.9 (kg) of 5.67 and 4.49, respectively.
Geothermal fluid 227.7 (kg) (d) The overall exergetic efficiencies of the milk powder produc-
Total electrical energy requirement 447.3 (kJ) tion system were found between 50% and 71%, for the
Total thermal energy requirement 16193.9 (kJ)
Total energy requirement 16643.0 (kJ)
geothermal fluid temperature of 150 C and 90 C,
respectively.
(e) The higher system performance was obtained at lower
geothermal fluid temperature at the evaporator. However,
from Fig. 5, when the geothermal fluid inlet temperature of the it is also necessary to decrease exergy destruction rate of
evaporator increases, exergy destruction rate of the evaporator other components found in the system by carrying out a
showed an increasing trend, which ends up with decrease in similar parametric studies to be able to have more efficient
exergy efficiency of the whole system. Therefore, when the system and sustainable system.
runs at lower geothermal fluid temperature, the performance of (f) While the systems of geothermal energy applications are
the system would be much better. For instance, using 90 C mostly expensive to install, the operational costs are very
geothermal fluid temperature instead of 110 C, the exergy effi- low than fossil fuelled systems. Hence the geothermal
ciency of the whole system reaches at 71% from 57.45%. energy technology becomes more applicable reliable and
It can be summarized that to produce 1 kg milk powder in a sec- sustainable option to meet energy requirements. As a further
ond, the mass and energy requirement were determined. The study, thermodynamic optimization can be applied to the
results are presented in Table 6, where total energy requirement system by taking into account of economic examination.

Please cite this article in press as: Yildirim N, Genc S. Energy and exergy analysis of a milk powder production system. Energy Convers Manage (2017),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.enconman.2017.01.064
8 N. Yildirim, S. Genc / Energy Conversion and Management xxx (2017) xxxxxx
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their valuable
and constructive comments, which have been very useful in
improving the quality of the paper.
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