CHEMICAL ENGINEERING TRANSACTIONS VOL. 43, 2015 A publication of The Italian Association of Chemical Engineering Online at www.aidic.it/cet Chief Editors: Sauro Pierucci, Jiří J. Klemeš Copyright © 2015, AIDIC Servizi S.r.l., I SBN 978-88-95608-34-1; I SSN 2283-9216 Life Cycle Assessment of Apple Powders Produced by a Drum Drying Process Iolanda De Marco, Raffaele Iannone, Salvatore Miranda, Stefano Riemma* University of Salerno, Department of Industrial Engineering, Via Giovanni Paolo II, 132, 84084, Fisciano (SA), Italy riemma@unisa.it This work aimed at evaluating the environmental performances of apple powders production based on a life cycle approach. Fruit powders are convenient, easy to handle and can be used to prepare several products such as snacks, beverages, bakery goods and baby foods. To preserve fruit nutritional properties, mainly three drying methodologies are used: convective or direct (for example, spray drying), indirect or contact (for example, drum drying), and freeze drying (lyophilisation). Among them, drum drying is often used in the case of large and continuous productions because of the simple structure of the dryers, less failure and low maintenance costs. In this work, a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study was performed to evaluate the environmental impacts of the industrial phases of apple powders production, obtained by a drum drying process. The system boundaries covered the industrial stages of the process, the distribution and the waste disposal (gate-to-gate and gate-to-grave approach). The materials and energy consumption and the emissions to air, soil and water were reported to the chosen functional unit (1 package of apple powder). Data were analysed using SimaPro 8.0.3 software and the Ecoinvent database, in accordance with the reference standard for LCA (i.e., ISO 14040-14044) to identify environmental key performance indicators (KPIs). 1. Introduction This work is related to the environmental impacts of the industrial phases of apple powders production, obtained by a drum drying process. Fruit powders are ideal ingredients in sauces, baby foods, extruded cereal products, fruit puree (Pszczola, 2003), because they are convenient and easy to handle (Jakubczyk et al., 2010). The most used drying methods may be classified in direct, indirect and freeze-drying. In the convective or direct drying, hot air is used to dry the fruit. Air heating increases the driving force for heat transfer and accelerates drying. The spray drying is an example of this kind of drying. In the contact or indirect drying (drum drying, for example), the heat is transferred through a hot wall; in this case, the wall temperature and the contact times have to be properly fixed in order to avoid the product degradation. In the lyophilisation or freeze-drying, the water contained in the fruit is frozen prior to drying and is then sublimed below water melting point. Each drying technique presents advantages and disadvantages. Drum drying, for example, is used in the case of large and continuous productions, because of the simple structure of the dryers, less failure and low maintenance costs. The main stages that have to be considered in the apple powders’ production are the agricultural phase (related to apples cultivation), the industrial stages (from fruit’s storage to drying), packaging, distribution and waste disposal. Life cycle assessment (LCA) has been largely used in many industrial sectors, such as, bioplastics (Petchprayul et al., 2012) or biodiesel (Wibul et al., 2012). The food industry, being a large user of energy, contributes significantly to total carbon dioxide emissions (Roy et al., 2009); therefore, in the last years, several papers aimed at evaluating the environmental impacts in some food branches were published. For example, LCA has been used to evaluate the environmental impact related to the production of wine (Iannone et al., 2014), tomato products (Karakaya and Özilgen, 2011) or fruit products (Cerutti et al., 2014). LCA is an internationally recognized and ISO standardized accounting tool to quantify the environmental impacts of a product, a process or a service throughout its life cycle, by identifying, DOI: 10.3303/CET1543033 Please cite this article as: De Marco I., Iannone R., Miranda S., Riemma S., 2015, Life cycle assessment of apple powders produced by a drum drying process, Chemical Engineering Transactions, 43, 193-198 DOI: 10.3303/CET1543033 193