Environmental Sustainability Assessment of a Filtration-Diafiltration Strategy for Recovering Savory Compounds from...

Area of Science:

• Food Science and Technology
• Environmental Engineering
• Sustainable Processing

Background:

• Increasing global seafood production generates substantial high-organic content wastewater, posing challenges for industry compliance with discharge standards.
• Mussel processing, in particular, produces significant effluent, with one-third of raw material becoming waste.
• Current wastewater disposal methods are costly and environmentally burdensome.

Purpose of the Study:

• To optimize a nanofiltration-diafiltration (NF-DF) process for recovering valuable savory compounds from mussel cooking water.
• To reduce organic pollution in seafood processing effluent.
• To evaluate the environmental sustainability of the proposed recovery strategy using Life Cycle Assessment (LCA).

Main Methods:

• Optimization of a nanofiltration-diafiltration (NF-DF) strategy.
• Pilot-scale trials to determine optimal concentration factors for NF (10-fold) and DF (20-fold).
• Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to evaluate environmental impacts.

Main Results:

• Achieved a 1.5-fold increase in protein concentration and a 5.2-fold increase in amino acid concentration.
• Demonstrated high efficiency in reducing chemical oxygen demand (COD) by 98.2%.
• Identified electricity consumption during NF and DF as the main environmental hotspot, with a carbon footprint of 0.12 kg CO2 eq. per kg of savory compounds.

Conclusions:

• The optimized NF-DF strategy effectively recovers valuable savory compounds from mussel processing wastewater, enhancing resource efficiency.
• The process significantly reduces effluent organic pollution, aiding industries in meeting discharge standards.
• Prospective LCA scenarios indicate substantial reductions in climate change and acidification impacts with future energy transitions, highlighting the strategy's long-term sustainability.