SMARTOPTION: Smart Yeast Filtration - Selbstoptimierende Prozessautomatisierung einer dynamischen Mikrofiltration mit KI-Unterstützung zur wirtschaftlichen Rückgewinnung von Hefe-Nebenstoffströmungen in Brauereien

The recovery of beer by filtration of excess yeast saves raw materials and energy in the brewing process, avoids food waste and improves the economic efficiency.
At the same time, the quality and concentration of excess yeast as a secondary product is increased. Beer recovery is a typical process in the food industry for processing continuous streams of raw materials of variable quality, which have so far only been mastered to a limited extent by automation technology.
The project aims to research the technology to enable the operation in small and medium sized breweries with an innovative dynamic filtration process using rotating ceramic membranes.
Conventional process design and management as well as process monitoring do not allow to exploit the achievable potential of the technology, which is necessary for the economic implementation in small breweries.
Since the brewing industry in Germany is characterized by a comparatively large proportion of small and medium-sized breweries (with a production share of about 30% of the total 93.5 million hl/year), this innovative technology can make a significant contribution to the conservation of resources, especially agricultural raw materials.
The aim of the project applied for is to optimise the process and the process automation of the Rotoramic plants with the methods of Industry 4.0 in order to achieve the highest possible yield and quality of the recovered beer, a long service life of the membranes and an operation that is as energy and resource-saving as possible.
The technological approaches to be developed in the project are methodologically transferable to similar, complex processes in the food industry. The aim is to show how such processes can be better controlled and made more resource-efficient by means of Industry 4.0.