Microwave assisted production process of fish flour and oil

Abstract

The fish production in Brazil in 2011 was 544,500 tons, generating approximately 381,200 tons of waste. Tilapia is the freshwater species of fish most industrialized in Brazil, with 235,800 tons in 2011, the yield is around 30%, generating 163,000 tons of waste, with great potential for use. Being 70% the water content, its use would get approximately 50 thousand tons of products with a high protein value. Silage is an alternative to the use of this waste, and is always accompanied by drying. The purpose of this research project is the use microwave assisted conventional processes of drying eliminating the silage and finding the optimum technical and economic feasibility. Researches using convection microwave combined drying for pumpkins and red peppers showed lower time and power consumption, higher rate of drying and less color degradation in the final product, hence this method can be applied to the fish waste processing obtaining fish oil and flour. There were previously Two sets of not controlled experiment were previously performed trials on microwave ovens at frequency of 915 MHz. The results revealed the need to reduce the particle size so that drying was more homogeneous, in addition, the results showed protein content greater than 50%, meeting industry standards. In this first phase of innovative research will be run controlled experiments per the stated experiment procedure to model the process with 15kW equipment. The results of the experiments will be analyzed by two statistical methods. The results for the characteristics of the products will be submitted to the response surface analysis and for process will be used in the principal component analysis. Finally, the virtual modeling and simulation of the process will be developed through the available software in Virtual Commissioning Laboratory of Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia. The processes developed in this project may be easily extended to other types of seafood such as shrimp waste, to obtain chitin and cartilaginous fish to obtain collagen. It is expected to extend the technology and knowledge to the treatment of municipal solid waste (MSW). Commonly discarded waste will be transformed into value-added products with this project avoiding burden on landfills. Finally, a pilot line of fish flour and oil production will be set up in the Instituto Mauá de Tecnologia to validate the proposed methodology and obtain real data of the production process as well as energy consumption parameters and physical, chemical and biological properties for oil and flour fish. Among the results expected at the end of this first phase can be listed: obtaining the characteristics of the microwave energy efficiency in respect of equipment, drying, sterilization and the integrity of the products; comparison of the products obtained with the market standards, modeling and simulation of the production process engaging drying by microwave to convective drying; determination of physical performance of the process and technological feasibility; studies of scenarios for production scales regarding technologically feasible arrangements and determination of economic viability for the same scenarios. (AU)