ahlifikirnegara: Matching Grant: Manufacturing Layout Seaweed Powder

How to cite this article:

Awang Bono, Yan Yan Farm, Suhaimi Md. Yasir, Buhri Arifin and M. Nurkhairi Jasni, 2011. Production of Fresh Seaweed Powder using Spray Drying Technique. Journal of Applied Sciences, 11: 2340-2345.

DOI: 10.3923/jas.2011.2340.2345

URL: https://scialert.net/abstract/?doi=jas.2011.2340.2345

Manufacturing Layout Seaweed Powder Processing

Spray drying technique is a common industrial process in the production of powder and granules from liquid materials.

Study based on production of powder from Sabah Green Seaweed (Kappaphycus alvarezii)

A laboratory scale spray dryer (Lab Plant SD-05) was used as the main equipment for the powder production

The spray drying technique can be considered for the production of seaweed powder

Traditionally, seaweeds have been used as food, fodder, fertilizer and as sources of medicinal drugs. They are nutritionally valuable as fresh or dried vegetables, or as ingredients in wide varieties of prepared foods.

There are many methods of seaweed processing and the most popular method is drying, which is the oldest known method for preserving the food.

Historically, in Sabah, seaweeds were dried in the sun with arrays of it were lay on a mattress. Dried seaweed has many advantages as compared to fresh seaweeds. The drying process preserves seaweed by removing enough moisture from the food to prevent it is from decaying.

Transformations of these products into fine powder will results in much reduced volume and longer shelf life.

Spray drying is a process which involves conversion of liquid feed into dry fine droplets form by exposing them to a hot drying media.

Though quite energy-intensive in many cases, spray-drying is often the drying method of choice because of its continuous design and flexibility.

In a continuous operation, the spray-dryer delivers a highly controlled powder quality with relatively easy control. In addition, the surface area produced by atomization of the liquid feed enables a short gas residence time, ranging from 3-40 sec depending upon the application, which permits spray drying without thermal degradation. This allows for fast turn-around times and product changes because there is no product hold up in the spray drying equipment. Besides, materials can be processed directly from farm to factory without any other extraction process or else. The most important thing is encapsulation by carrageenan itself, which occurred during spray drying process (Gharsallaoui et al., 2007). The main advantage behind the encapsulation process is it preserves many useful properties of seaweed.

Develop spray-drying methodology for production of fresh seaweed powder.

The preparation of seaweed samples and the spray drying process.

Preparations of samples: Fresh seaweed (Kappaphycus) samples were collected from seaweed farm. Seaweed samples were washed with distilled water and chopped into small pieces (5-7 mm) and liquidized using electronic blender (Panasonic MX-898M). The liquidized seaweed sample was then filtered using 0.45 μm membrane filter. The filtrate collected was heat up to 60°C prior spraying drying process.

· Washed with distilled water

· Chopped into small pieces

· Liquidized using electronic blender

· Filtered using 0.45 μm membrane filter

· Heat up to 60°C

Prior Spraying Drying Process

Spray drying: Spray drying process was performed using the laboratory scale spray dryer LabPlant SD-05. The seaweed filtrate was fed into the main chamber through a peristaltic pump at the rate of 8 mL h^-1. The hot air flow rate in to the drying chamber was set at 40 m³ h^-1, while compressor air pressure was set at 1.2 MPa. Three different inlet temperatures were used in these experiments, i.e., 130, 140 and 150°C. The spray drying process was performed at constant process condition. The seaweed powder obtained was kept in plastic container and stored in a desiccators containing silica gel.

· Seaweed filtrate was fed

· Main chamber

· Peristaltic pump

· Seaweed powder obtained was kept in plastic container

· Stored in a desiccators containing silica gel

The seaweed powder obtained

Spray drying is one of popular drying process with the ability to control particles size, moisture and retards volatile.

For the production of fresh seaweed powder, using spray drying technique, itis shown that the product with the expected properties can be produced easily. High air inlet temperature produced large particle sizes, higher antioxidant activity and lower moisture content.

Reference:

https://publicaties.ecn.nl/PdfFetch.aspx?nr=ECN-E--16-026

Seaweed is seen as one of the most promising aquaculture crops of the future, yielding products ranging from Human food, animal feed, cosmetics, bioplastics and fuel. The cultivation of seaweed in increasingly busy coastal waters poses many challenges.

Establishment of a seaweed chain.

Develop an environmentally sustainable and economically viable seaweed chain design.

Seed, cultivation, harvest, transport, bio-refinery and knowledge of the market need.

Much more profitable to convert seaweed to products with a higher added value like food, feed and bio-based products.

Before the seaweed can be refined seaweed must first be cultivated, harvested and transported to onshore locations.

Comparison of Seaweed in Europe and Asia

Seaweed farming and consumption predominantly takes place in Asia. China, Japan, the Philippines, Indonesia and Korea are the main production countries. Seaweed is grown in shallow waters and is being harvested by hand. The large scale production close to the shore causes environmental issues like distortion of balance of nutrients and decreasing biodiversity.

Seaweed processing and plant design

To isolate several high value products from fresh seaweed.

The product spectrum encompasses a food and pharmaceutical ingredient, mannitol, which is also a high value chemical intermediate for further conversion to other high value chemical intermediates.

From the residue, one can isolate alginate to further develop the bio refinery concept. In parallel, the isolation of protein in the chain at various places is evaluated to assess the most optimal protocol in conjunction with the other high value products.

Seaweed is highly perishable. Thus, storage concepts are being developed. One such storage concept is silage.

STORAGE

Ensiling was performed by covering fresh wet seaweed with plastic, putting water on top and storing the seaweed for weeks at room temperature. ensiling seems an effective way to preserve the major structural components.

Mannitol was isolated following a cascading biorefinery approach (van Hal et al., 2014) from two batches of Kelps: (a) the ensilaged Saccharina latissima and (b) fresh Laminaria digitata from Ireland. The latter was included for comparison since fresh Kelps seem a better source for mannitol. Mannitol isolation was performed using the following steps: (a) extraction with fresh water2, (b) separation of mannitol from high-molecular weight components such as laminarin by membrane-filtration of the extracted liquor, (c) rota-evaporation of the obtained permeate and (d) purification of the obtained crude mannitol. The solid residue obtained from step (a) contained most of the protein and alginate.

· Isolated

· Extraction with fresh water

· Separation

· Rota-evaporation

· Purification

Isolation to Purification

The process liquors were first centrifuged to remove any solid particles present. Subsequently, the liquors were successfully subjected to ultrafiltration in two steps: (a) 30 kDa and (b) 1kDa to remove high-molecular weight impurities. Finally, the permeates were rota-evaporated to obtain a crude mannitol powder. From fresh Laminaria digitata, a crude with a 45% mannitol purity was obtained. The remainder consisted of 4% ash and the rest were probably oligomeric carbohydrates (with Mw <1kDa). Continuation of the membrane-filtration over longer times in order to produce a larger batch of mannitol showed a reduction of the selectivity of the membrane resulting in a crude with a 28% mannitol purity. The crude mannitol was purified using methanol extraction in a Soxhlet set-up and subsequent crystallisation of mannitol. This purification procedure was found to be very effective resulting in virtually pure mannitol with only traces of impurities. The melting point of the purified mannitol was 166 °C compared to 168 °C of commercial mannitol.

· Were first centrifuged (to remove any solid particles present)

· Ultrafiltration (to remove high-molecular weight impurities)

· Finally, rota-evaporated (to obtain a crude mannitol powder )

Raw ---- Extracted - Purified

Wet seaweed from the storage is fed to a size reduction unit and the extractable sugars (mannitol and laminarin) are removed by hot water extraction. The solids fraction goes to a black-box protein removal process. The alginates are obtained as sodium alginate through reaction with sodium carbonate. A second protein fraction is removed through filtration. From the sugar stream laminarin is removed by membrane filtration. Mannitol is obtained through crystallization. The remaining constituents are sent to a digester for production of biogas and the inorganics are concentrated by a reverse osmosis membrane to obtain a liquid fertilizer feedstock stream.