A piece of sugarcane slips around the production line, and the remaining metabolites are turned into fertilizer and returned to the sugarcane field. A drop of water, running in various workshops, is recycled to "eat dry and squeeze out". Angel Yeast, the world's second largest yeast company, has realized the closed loop of the circular economy industry chain.
Yiting Anqi Biotechnology Industrial Park
Recently, the reporter saw in the yeast green production base in the Anqi Biotechnology Industrial Park that bags of yeast flowed in an orderly manner on the production line.
MVR system evaporation unit. The device evaporates the water from the highly concentrated wastewater, leaving behind yeast metabolites
Sugarcane in the south and sugar beet in the north are processed to produce molasses, which is a by-product of sugar production, which is "digested" by Angel and used to produce yeast and yeast-derived products, which are widely used in baking and fermented pasta, food seasoning, brewing and bioenergy, human nutrition and health, animal, plant, microbial nutrition and other fields. It not only extends the sugar circular economy industrial chain, but also makes up for the environmental protection shortcomings of the sugar industry chain.
Low-concentration wastewater treatment plant
Some of these products are brought to the table, and the metabolites produced during the production process are used as raw materials to produce organic fertilizer, which is returned to the field to help crops grow. "This is due to our self-developed comprehensive treatment technology of 'separation of light and light, waste water recycling'. Cao Junfei, director of the yeast production department of Angel Yeast Yichang Company, introduced. The highly concentrated wastewater generated in yeast production is turned into yeast metabolites through an evaporation and concentration process, which is used as a raw material in downstream fertilizer factories to produce organic fertilizer.
The biogas boiler is used to fully recover the biogas and further reduce the energy consumption
At the same time, biogas is generated during the wastewater treatment process, and a new biogas boiler is built at the production site to convert the biogas into steam, which is piped to the workshop as kinetic energy "feeding" production.
Zhu Tingting, Ph.D. in Environmental Science from Nanjing University and Director of the Environmental Protection Technology Research Institute of Anqi Green Materials and Environmental Protection Technology Center, is conducting exhaust gas testing
In the long-term practice, Angel has gradually formed a circular economy industrial chain of "raw materials come from the processing of agricultural products, the main products are served to the table, and the derivative products serve agriculture", as well as the production concept of eating dry and squeezing clean, turning waste into treasure, and recycling, so as to achieve sustainable development.
From the industrial chain to the production factors, the green cycle is realized in Angel -
In the production hall, a row of blue pumps continuously feeds the cooling water of the equipment to cool the high-speed machine, "and then flows into the circulating water tank through the water pipe erected in the air, and then enters the different production units again to meet the water consumption of other processes." Tan Aidong, deputy director of the environmental protection production department of Angel Yeast Yichang Company, said that in the past, the water used to cool the pump was directly treated by environmental protection, and 200 tons of water were consumed per day. After the process improvement, the cooling water of this part of the equipment is fully recycled.
The recycling of equipment cooling water is just another new attempt by Angel to do a good job in "water articles". Angel's production lines have fully recovered and recycled "wastewater" in the traditional sense, such as CIP discharge water, secondary separation water, and steam condensate. Previously, in response to the worldwide problem of "yeast organic wastewater treatment", Angel has invested more than 1 billion yuan to break through the bottleneck of environmental protection and reduce the unit consumption of water by 60%.
A bird's-eye view of Angel Yeast Yichang Company
The company's yeast production water-saving capacity has reached the leading level in the national industry, and it is the drafting unit of the national water quota in the yeast manufacturing industry, and has been rated as a provincial-level water-saving enterprise, and has normalized the implementation of water-saving technological transformation, with an annual water saving of about 550,000 tons.
Angel Fubang yeast nutritional fertilizer products
In addition, waste gas, waste residue, and waste heat are also turned into treasures in Anqi, and the "festival" does its best. Since it was put into operation in July 2022, among the main energy consumption indicators of Angel Yeast Green Production Base, gas consumption has decreased by 14.3%, water consumption has decreased by 11.7%, and electricity consumption has decreased by 4.9%.
(Correspondent/Zhang Yuanyuan, Yang Ligen, Reporter/Ke Wenxiang)
(Photo provided by Angel Group)