Cleanliness in the area of water for food production

Around three per­cent of the world’s avail­able water is drink­able fresh­wa­ter. The increased occur­rence of extreme weath­er events such as heat and droughts in recent years makes it clear how valu­able this resource is in this coun­try, too. At the same time, large quan­ti­ties of water are need­ed to pro­duce food. Inno­v­a­tive phys­i­cal process­es could help reduce fresh water require­ments in food pro­cess­ing through water treat­ment and water recy­cling. By elim­i­nat­ing par­ti­cles and germs, this also reduces the envi­ron­men­tal impact of waste­water. Fol­low­ing suc­cess­ful lab­o­ra­to­ry tests, the Physics for food research project is start­ing a prac­ti­cal test in the Anklam factory.

Envi­ron­men­tal­ly harm­ful sub­stances and germs are to be removed from the process water used in sug­ar pro­duc­tion using a nov­el com­bi­na­tion of var­i­ous phys­i­cal process­es such as mechan­i­cal fil­ters, acti­vat­ed car­bon, ultra­sound, ozona­tion, UV treat­ment and pulsed elec­tric fields (PEF). In addi­tion, a spe­cial plas­ma tech­nol­o­gy will be used to ren­der pes­ti­cides and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal residues harm­less by means of a dielec­tric-obstruct­ed dis­charge (DBE).

The var­i­ous mod­ules will be test­ed for effec­tive­ness on dif­fer­ent waste­waters dur­ing the course of the project. The mobile demon­stra­tor can puri­fy up to 2,500 liters of waste­water per hour. The plant will make it pos­si­ble to test the effect of the var­i­ous process­es used on the respec­tive water com­po­si­tion, both indi­vid­u­al­ly and in com­bi­na­tion, in prepa­ra­tion for the opti­mal design of large-scale appli­ca­tions for dif­fer­ent areas of use.

Environmentally friendly water treatment processes thanks to innovative technologies

The pro­jec­t’s sci­en­tif­ic direc­tor Prof. Dr. Jür­gen Kolb from the Leib­niz Insti­tute for Plas­ma Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (INP) explains: “The treat­ment of water in food pro­duc­tion and agri­cul­ture offers enor­mous eco­log­i­cal and eco­nom­ic poten­tial. We are look­ing for new ways to either reuse waste­water direct­ly in the pro­duc­tion process or to return it clean­ly to nature. By com­bin­ing clas­si­cal water treat­ment process­es with inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies such as plas­ma, ultra­sound and pulsed elec­tric fields, we can very effi­cient­ly remove germs, agro­chem­i­cals and phar­ma­ceu­ti­cals from water, keep­ing them out of ground­wa­ter or sur­face waters. We see poten­tial appli­ca­tions not only in food pro­duc­tion but also in plant cul­ti­va­tion, ani­mal hus­bandry or in hos­pi­tal environments.”

The Cosun Beet Com­pa­ny, as oper­a­tor of the Anklam sug­ar fac­to­ry, is involved as a prac­ti­cal part­ner. The plant in Meck­len­burg-West­ern Pomera­nia cur­rent­ly process­es around 1.8 mil­lion tons of sug­ar beet annu­al­ly. In addi­tion to gran­u­lat­ed sug­ar, the plant also pro­duces ani­mal feed, bioethanol and bio­methane from the sug­ar beets, which is fed into the nat­ur­al gas grid as a renew­able ener­gy source.

“Our goal is to achieve a com­plete cir­cu­lar econ­o­my when pro­cess­ing sug­ar beet. We want to make opti­mum and sus­tain­able use of all com­po­nents. Water treat­ment is cen­tral to our sus­tain­abil­i­ty strat­e­gy in this regard.”

- Miri­am Woller-Pfeifer, plant engineer

In addi­tion to Cosun Beet Com­pa­ny GmbH & Co. KG and the Leib­niz Insti­tute for Plas­ma Research and Tech­nol­o­gy e.V. (INP), Har­bauer GmbH and Pow­er Recy­cling Ener­gy­ser­vice GmbH are involved as fur­ther project part­ners. The project, which is fund­ed by the Ger­man Fed­er­al Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Research, will run until the end of 2022.