Addis Ababa Science and Technology University

Lecture notes for Unit operation in food processing

Department: Food Science and Nutrition

By: Tayto Mindahun (MSc in Process Engineering)

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
 Chapter 2
Material and Energy balance
Material Balance
Introduction: Food Manufacturing Process Analysis
▪ Before a food manufacturing process can be installed and commissioned into a factory, the
following steps should be considered;
1. Concept Stage (Define):
➢ Product: Identify the specific food product (e.g., bread, juice, yogurt).
➢ Production Rate: Set a target output quantity per unit of time (e.g., tons per day, units per
minute).
➢ Process Flowchart (Start): Create a high-level diagram outlining the major steps involved.
2. Process Analysis (Quantify):
➢ Material Balance:
❑ Stream Identification: Identify all material entering and exiting each processing stage (e.g.,
raw ingredients, water streams, waste streams).
❑ Mass Flow Rate: Calculate the amount of material flowing through each stream per unit
time (e.g., kg/min, liters/hour).
❑ Composition Analysis: Determine the percentage or concentration of ingredients within
each stream (e.g., water content in dough).
Introduction: Food Manufacturing Process Analysis:
➢ Energy Balance (if applicable):
❑ Heat Transfer Points: Identify stages where heat is added (cooking, pasteurization) or removed
(cooling, freezing).
❑ Heat Quantification: Quantify the amount of heat transferred at each stage (e.g., calories
required to raise dough temperature).

3. Detailed Design:
❑ Design the specific layout and configuration of the entire food manufacturing process.
4. Equipment Specification:
❑ Select the appropriate equipment for each stage based on the process requirements
determined through analysis.
5. Additional Considerations:
❑ Regulations: Factor in any relevant food safety and quality regulations that may impact process
design.
❑ Scalability: Consider future needs and design a process that can be easily scaled up or down if
production rates change.
What is material balance?
❑ Material balance of an industrial food process is an exact accounting of all the materials that enter,
leave, accumulate, or are exhausted in a given operation and then extends to the whole process.
What are a process and a system?
▪ A process is a series of actions which are carried out in order to achieve a particular result, where, in
food processing, the actions are operations such as drying, canning, freezing, crystallization,
evaporation, etc.
▪ In practice, a process can involve different operations to attain the end product. Normally, to facilitate
the analysis of the process, scientists/engineers divide (subdivide) the whole process into different
systems (subsystems).
▪ Therefore, a system is a part of the process that has been defined by the food processor to simplify the
analysis of the whole system.
▪ It should be emphasized that the system is defined by the processor, and it is an essential step before
formulating a material balance.
Note: You cannot formulate a material balance if you have not defined the system!
Process, system and boundary: Examples
A system is necessarily a whole process comprising
various operations or a single unit operation or a
portion of a unit operation.

A boundary is the area outside the system through

which the material comes in to the system or goes out.
Operation modes
❑ Any arbitrary or complete portion of a process is called a system. The systems might be classified into:

1. a continuous system, where the matter is transferred through the frontiers of the system; i.e., it enters
and leaves the system continuously. The system could be in a steady state or transient state; or
2. a closed or batch system, in which there is no transfer of matter across the system boundary.
Why material balance is relevant for food science and technology?
1. Quantify Inputs and Outputs: Track the amount of raw materials entering a process and the
amount of product and waste leaving. This helps ensure efficient use of ingredients and identify
areas for improvement.
2. Optimize Processes: By understanding the flow of materials, you can identify bottlenecks, optimize
processing times, and minimize waste generation.
3. Maintain Product Quality: Material balance helps ensure consistent product composition and
quality by identifying potential variations in ingredient amounts or processing conditions.
4. Develop New Products: By understanding how ingredients interact and transform during
processing, material balance can be used to design and develop new food products with desired
qualities.
5. Cost Control: By accounting for all materials used, material balance helps identify areas for cost
savings through minimizing waste and optimizing ingredient usage.
6. Environmental Impact: Material balance can help assess the environmental impact of food
processing by tracking resource consumption and waste generation.
7. Process Troubleshooting: Discrepancies between expected and actual material quantities can
indicate problems in a process, allowing for quicker identification and rectification of issues
Formulating material balance equations
Law of Conservation of Matter:
➢ Material balance is based on the principle that matter cannot be created or destroyed during a
process, only transformed.
➢ That is, during a process, the fundamental building blocks (atoms) of matter cannot be created or
destroyed. They can only be rearranged, combined, or separated to form new substances.
➢ Material balances deal with mass flow rates, not volumetric flow rates. This is because
unlike mass, volumes can change due to interactions between components

▪ When the flask is weighed once more, it is clear

that the weight has not changed because the
ice’s mass has not changed as a result of the
physical transformation.
The general mass balance equation
▪The equation given below can be applied for any conserved quantity such as total mass, mass of a specific
species, energy, momentum.
Special cases:
❑ In the continuous system (a), we can distinguish three different types of material balances, as
follows:
1. Inputs – Outputs + Generation – Consumption = Accumulation; this is a transient system where
the accumulation could be positive or negative. It is a system with inputs, outputs, and
chemical/biochemical reactions.
2. Inputs – Outputs = Accumulation; this is a transient system without chemical/biochemical
reactions.
3. Inputs – Outputs = 0; this is a steady-state system with no accumulation or chemical/biochemical
reactions.
❑ In a closed or batch system, the material balance is as follows:
Accumulation = Generation - Consumption; this is a system with no input or output streams but with
chemical/biochemical reactions.
❑ As a teaching approach to learn material balance, most of the subsequent analysis will be focused on
continuous operation type 3, as follows, for a total material balance:
σ 𝐼𝑛𝑝𝑢𝑡𝑠 − σ 𝑂𝑢𝑡𝑝𝑢𝑡𝑠 = 0;
a steady-state system with no accumulation or chemical/biochemical reactions.
Basis and tie materials

▪ Having decided which constituents need consideration, the basis for the
calculations has to be decided.
▪ This might be some mass of raw material entering the process in a batch
system, or some mass per hour in a continuous process.
▪ Having selected the basis, then the units may be chosen such as mass, or
concentrations which can be by weight or can be molar if reactions are
important.
▪ A basis of an unknown quantity is considered, the value of which is required to
be calculated from a mass or energy balance.
▪ A ‘tie material’ is one of the components of a system or material which does
not change during process. They remain constant and do not undergo any
transformation or change in their properties.
 Overall Material Balances
▪ If the streams in Fig. given below have mass flow rates m1, m2, m3 and m4,
respectively, then, because the sum the mass flow rates of all streams entering the
process must equal the sum of the flow rates of all streams leaving the process,
𝐦𝟏 + 𝐦𝟐 = 𝐦𝟑 + 𝐦𝟒 (1)

▪ Equation (1) is an example of an overall material balance. The SI unit of mass flow rate is kg s−1 but it may often
be convenient to use different units depending on the magnitude of flow rates in a particular process.
 Concentration and Composition
▪ The concentration or composition of a stream can be expressed in a number of ways
as:
▪ Mass fraction (x): is simply the mass of a given component expressed as a fraction of
the total mass of the mixture containing that component. Thus if a mixture consists of
masses mA and mB of components A and B, respectively, the mass fraction of A is given
by:
𝐦𝐀
𝒙𝑨 =
𝐦𝐀 + 𝐦𝐁

▪ Mole fraction (y): is defined as the number of moles of a specified component

expressed as a fraction of the total number of moles in the mixture. Hence if the
mixture contains nA moles of A and nB moles of B, the mole fraction is given by:

𝐧𝐀
𝐲𝐀 =
𝐧𝐀 + 𝐧
 Component Material Balances
▪ Suppose that each of the four streams in Fig. shown below contains water. At steady
state, the combined mass flow rate of water in all streams entering the process must
equal the combined mass flow rates of water leaving the process. Now if x is the mass
fraction of water in a stream of total mass flow rate m, then the mass flow rate of
water is xm. Hence :
𝐱 𝟏 𝐦𝟏 + 𝐱 𝟐 𝐦𝟐 = 𝐱𝟑 𝐦𝟑 + 𝐱𝟒 𝐦𝟒 (2)

Equation (2) is known as a component material balance.

 Procedure for Material Balance Calculations
❑ In material balance problems, you will usually be given a description of a process, the values of
several process variables, and a list of quantities to be determined. In order to be trained on using
a systematic procedure to solve material balance problems, you are advised to follow the steps
summarized below:
1. Draw and label the process flow chart (block diagram). When labeling, write the values of known
streams and assign symbols to unknown stream variables. Use the minimum number possible of
symbols.
2. Select a basis of calculation. This is usually the given stream amounts or flow rates, if no given
then assume an amount of a stream with known composition.
3. Write material balance equations. Note in here the maximum number of independent equations
you can write for each system is equal the number of species in the input and output streams of
this system. Also note to first write balances that involve the fewest unknown variables.
4. Solve the equations derived in step 3 for the unknown quantities to be determined.
Examples
1. Skim milk, with a fat content of 0.4% by mass, is produced by centrifuging whole milk (containing 3.5% fat).
The cream layer, which separates from the skim milk in the centrifuge, contains 50% fat. What will be the
proportion of skim milk to cream?

2. The dried vegetable containing 7% moisture content (wet basis) was conveyed to a water spraying chamber. If
the moisture content of the vegetable is required to be raised to 35% (wet basis), find out the amount of water
sprayed to the vegetable.

Exercise: 1
1. Cheese whey containing 4% by mass lactose and 2% protein, with the balance being water, is fed to
an experimental ultrafiltration unit at a rate of 100 kg h−1. The membrane is chosen so that the
protein concentration in the permeate (effectively the waste stream passing through the membrane)
falls to 0.02% whilst the lactose concentration rises slightly to 4.5%. If the feed is concentrated by a
factor of 2, determine the composition of the retentate stream.
2. A wet food product contains 70% water. After drying, it is found that 80% of original water has been
removed. Determine (a) mass of water removed per kilogram of wet food and (b) composition of
dried food.
Recycle , purge and Bypass of a process
A recycle stream is one where a portion of the outlet of a process unit is
combined with fresh feed and sent into the same unit again.

Recycle may be used for a number of reasons:

(i) to increase the yield from a chemical reaction
by recycling unreacted species;
(ii) to reduce the inlet concentration of a given
component to a particular level by diluting that
component
(iii) To conserve energy by recycling high-
temperature streams which would otherwise be
wasted.
 Bypass stream
▪ A Bypass stream is one that skips one or more stages of the process and goes directly
to another downstream stage.

▪ Bypass stream can be used to control the composition of a final stream.

 Purge Stream
▪ Purge stream is a stream bled off to remove an accumulation of inerts or
unwanted material that might otherwise build up in the recycle stream.
 Example 2:
1. A continuously operated rotary drier is used to dry 12 kg min−1 of a starch-based
food containing 25% moisture (wet weight basis) to give a product containing 10%
moisture. However, the drier cannot handle feed material with a moisture content
greater than 15% and therefore a proportion of dry product must be recycled and mixed
with the fresh feed. Calculate the evaporation rate and the recycle ratio.

Exercise:
2. Dehumidified air of 0.008 kg H2O/kg air is required to be fed to a dryer. The atmospheric air
has the absolute humidity of 0.02 kg H2O/kg air. Therefore, the air is passed through a
dehumidifying system that reduces the absolute humidity to 0.004 kg H2O/kg air. So, part of
the fresh atmospheric air is bypassed to dehumidifying unit. Find out the mass of water
removed per 100 kg of dry air feed and the percentage of bypassed air.
Energy Balance in Food Processing
Introduction
❑ In the food industry facilities, edible raw materials (harvested crops, milk and meat products, slaughtered
animals, fish, or other food-based raw materials) are converted into higher value food products that are very
attractive, marketable, and often have long shelf life. During such transformations, high amounts of labor,
machinery, and energy are used.
▪ The main energy sources used in the food manufacturing industry include petroleum, natural gas, coal,
renewable energy, and electricity.

▪ Particularly, the food industry integrates several processes such as sterilization/ pasteurization, filtering, frying,
precooking/cooking, freezing, packaging, etc., many of them consuming high-energy rates, such as drying by hot
air, and concentration by evaporation. It also involves other processes such as transportation from field to
factory, and distribution to the consumer, which also involve a high-energy consumption.
▪ An accurate accounting of consumed energy (and mis-consumed) during food production is then of high
importance but extremely challenging.
❑ Energy balance refers to the accounting of energy entering and leaving a system. Consequently,
energy balances are very useful for optimizing energy consumption during food processing, in food
factories, and in food supply chain.
 Forms of Energy
❑ The total energy of a system is the sum of its kinetic energy, potential energy, and internal
energy.
Transfer of Energy: Heat and work
❑ Energy transfer as heat /work occurs in both closed and open systems.
Transfer of Energy: Heat and work
❑ In closed system (i.e. no mass is transferred across the system boundaries while the process
is taking place), energy may be transferred between such a system and its surroundings in
two ways as heat or work.
Transfer of Energy: Thermal Energy, Q (Heat)
❑ Thermal energy, Q, can be determined if the heat capacity c is known. Thus:

▪ If the path for energy transfer is under constant pressure, then

where c p is the specific heat capacity at constant

pressure, J/(kg K).

❑ Under constant volume conditions

where c v is the specific heat capacity at constant volume, J/(kg K)

Energy Balances on Closed System
❑ In closed systems, energy transfer as heat/work occurs within the system boundary, without
involving mass transfer across the boundary.
▪ Energy in closed systems follows the Law of Conservation of Energy.

Final System Energy – Initial System Energy = Net Energy Transferred to the System
Energy Balances on Closed System
Final System Energy – Initial System Energy = Net Energy Transferred to the System

❑ However, energy can be transferred across the boundaries as heat / work.

▪ One important property for energy balance on closed system is

෡ (KJ/Kmol).
specific internal energy, 𝑼
Energy Balances on Closed System
❑ The general energy balance equation for a closed system describes the conservation of energy
within the system, considering energy transfer in the form of heat and work. It can be expressed as:

𝑸 − 𝑾 = 𝑼 + 𝑬𝒌 + 𝑬𝒑

▪ If a system is not accelerating, then Ek = 0. If a system is not rising or falling, then Ep = 0.

Energy Balances on Open System

❑ In open system, mass is transferred across the system boundaries while the process is
taking place.
▪ Therefore work must be done on open system to push mass in and work is done on the
surrounding by mass that emerges from the systems.
▪ The general energy balance equation for open systems is given by:
Energy Balances on Open System
❑ Work appearing in the equation given above is a combination of flow work and shaft
work.
Energy Balances on Open System
❑ One important property for energy balance in open system is specific enthalpy, 𝑯
෡
(kJ/kg).
Energy Balances on Open System
Energy Balances on Open System

❑ Simplifying the first law of thermodynamics for specific systems:

𝑄ሶ = 𝐻ሶ = ෍ 𝑛𝑖 𝐻𝑖 − ෍ 𝑛𝑖 𝐻𝑖
𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑛

𝑄ሶ = 𝐻ሶ = ෍ 𝑚𝑖 𝐻𝑖 − ෍ 𝑚𝑖 𝐻𝑖
𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑖𝑛
Energy Balance Tips
Procedures for calculating Energy Balance
Procedures for calculating Energy Balance
Procedures for calculating Energy Balance
Examples
1. Fruit juice is fed to a heat exchanges at the rate of 15 kg/h. Saturated steam at 145 kPa
pressure is used to heat the juice from 7℃ to 90℃. Assuming the heat capacity of juice 5kJ/kg0C,
find out the quantity of steam required for the operation. (Given that latent heat of
condensation (𝜆𝑠 ) @ 145 Kpa is 2229 KJ/Kg
2. Orange juice (with a mean heat capacity of 3.8 kJ kg−1 K−1) enters a heat exchanger at 12 ◦C with a flow
rate of 500 kg h−1. It is heated by water flowing at 0.11 kg s−1 and the water temperature falls from 80 to
30°C. What is the final temperature of the orange juice? (Given: specific heat of water is 4.182KJ/kg.K))
 Review questions
1. A processing unit is producing a product of 100kg which must contain 15% of fat and
this is to be made up from component A with 23% of fat and from component B with
5% of fat. What are the proportions in which these should be mixed?
2. For the given process

a) What is A in the process?

b) What is B in the process?
End of chapter 2