Experimental development of an integrated BSG valorisation process and design of a 2000 tpy demo-unit

The aim of the project is to conduct a series of experiments to optimise the operative conditions and design criteria for the process developed by Prof. Manuel Coimbra for the extraction of proteins and arabino-xylans from brewer's spent grain (BSG); and secondly for the preparation of the documentation necessary for the transition of the process from a laboratory scale to a demonstrative plant able to process 2000 t/year of BSG. The documentation will include: Process description, design basis, PFD and P&ID, as well as instrument list, equipment list, line list, plot plan and process flowsheeting files; also an economical evaluation, by means of estimated CAPEX and OPEX values will be perfomed. Preliminary experiments aimed at the preparation of kg size samples of proteins and arabino-xylans with a TURBEX will be performed in Italy. Analysis of the fractions obtained and the preparation of the detailed engineering documentation mentioned before will be also performed in Aveiro.