ENERGY INDICATORS OF THERMO-MIXING SYSTEM OPERATION IN A MILK PROCESSING LINE WITH THE USE OF A COMPLEX ENERGY-SUBSTITUTING INSTALLATION

The Department of Technology and Technological and Processing Equipment of Livestock Products (Crimean Federal University named after V.I. Vernadsky) conducts research on the optimization of energy costs of the milk processing technology. Experimental studies of the power consumption of a thermo-mixing installation in a manufacturing line of dairy products have been carried out with the help of an experimental production plant. To measure the temperature of the heated water in the solar collectors the authors have used calibrated thermocouples TXA of K type of a measuring 8-channel block “Tera Д-ИТ-8ТП-Э3а-РSТ-2U”. The energy costs for heating the product have been determined by measuring the voltage parameters on thermal electric heaters. The results of the conducted experiments have confirmed the hypothesis of a possibility of replacing the consumed electric energy by heating the product with solar radiation energy converted into thermal energy by means of a complex energy-substituting installation (CESI). The figures show the comparison of specific energy costs in the thermo-mixing system of the existing version, and in the case of the CESI use. The paper offers a relationship pattern of the energy consumption amount and the product amount - from 0.1 to 1.0 tons; it also shows comparative diagrams of specific energy consumption for the operation of thermo-mixing system at various ways of supplying a heat carrier. It is claimed that the installation of an energy-substituting installation based on solar collectors makes it possible to reduce the total energy consumption at an ambient temperature of 20...30 °C from 11.0 to 2.3 kWh/ton at a solar radiation intensity Qc of 0.45...1.0 kW/m2. At values of Qc equaling 1.0...1.55 kW/m2, practically all the energy spent on heating can be replaced by free energy of solar radiation. It has been proved that two-circuit supply of a heat-transfer agent to the fermentation tank allows to reduce specific energy costs for the system operation by an average of 25% as compared to its supply to the heating jacket only. In contrast to the existing basic version, the reduction of specific energy consumption will amount to 55...78%, depending on weather conditions.