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Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PigHeat (Utilizing Pig By-products as Heat Source to Save Recycling and Energy Cost.)

Teaser

Summary

Bigas Alsina, S.A. is a company dedicated to the design and construction of complete plants for the treatment of meat by-products. For this reason, and due to the constant contact with the clients of the sector, we have access to the different concerns and challenges of our customers. Hence we have been able to confirm that one of the main needs of slaughterhouses, and especially pig slaughterhouses, is to be more efficient in their activity, and to have a lower environmental footprint, within the possibilities that the technique allows.
Our activity helps greatly in this regard. The use of meat by-products translates all slaughter waste into protein, fat and water, which become benefits for the industry that generates them and a reduction in polluting waste. However, there was a product that had not just found an efficient solution. Pig hair was still the least valued of the by-products due to the low revenue that was obtained.
Thus at Bigas Alsina, S.A. we started a research project, together with the University of Vic and with the collaboration of several slaughterhouses, to be able to make this by-product more profitable. Our objective was to be able to demonstrate at the laboratory level, that it could be transformed into a fuel that respects the environment and that would allow us to eliminate 100% of this by-product.
The tests in the laboratory were surprisingly good, and for that reason we decided to participate in the PIGHEAT project, which would allow us to carry out the construction of a scaled up plant, and therefore would allow us to use it as a pilot plant for commercialization demonstrations for our potential customers.
In this manner, it is intended:
1. - To eliminate pig hair waste, removing a highly perishable and contaminating by-product.
2. - To transform it into fuel, reducing the emission of polluting gases into the atmosphere and helping to make profitable the exploitation of the slaughterhouse, thanks to the fuel savings that implies.
3. - On the other hand, not only the hair is transformed into fuel, the latent heat of the water it contains, it is used to heat water, reducing even more, the fuel consumption in the slaughterhouse.

Work performed

First of all, we tried to contact a company that would allow us to install the plant in its facilities. In this way we would be able to have a working plant in an industry that could really benefit from our technology. In addition, this industry should have a size comparable to most customers in the target market, and be of a prestige beyond doubt, so that their decision was of positive value to replicate by other possible buyers. Finally, this company should be willing to allow the entry of future interested customers (many of them possibly its competitors) so that the results could be promoted, and if possible, that was not far away from our factory, to be able to easily perform follow-ups once the installation was done.
It goes without saying that it was not easy to find a candidate which would fulfill all these conditions. The first weeks were devoted to an exhaustive search among our contacts, but finally, a slaughterhouse that widely fulfilled these conditions was interested.
Since then, our efforts have been aimed at designing, contacting suppliers, manufacturing and starting to assemble the equipment to meet the stipulated deadlines.
At this moment we are already at the peak of the manufacturing period, but despite this, the installation period of the first finished equipment has already begun.

Final results

Certainly this is an ambitious project, since we consider that it is a technology never before carried out and that it contains certain risks. Despite this, we are very hopeful due to the positive results obtained in the laboratory tests that were done before starting PIGHEAT.
If everything is really achieved as we expect, it can be a revolution in the world of pig slaughterhouses. To ensure that the least valued of its by-products has the same value as a fuel of equivalent calorific value, it will mean that it will suddenly become the most precious by-product, which will translate into:
- Reduction of carbon footprint of slaughterhouses
- Exploitation will be more profitable
- Fuel savings
- Compatibility with the environment
- Reduction of carbon footprint and costs related to the transportation of tons of fur generated every day.

By making the PIGHEAT technology successful and able to introduce it among pig slaughterhouses, in which the costs of generating energy in these industries were revolutionized, this would mean that the price of meat would decrease or the volume of investments of these slaughterhouses would considerably increase. Do not forget that one of the main costs of these companies is the energy they consume, much of it for the production of hot water. Reducing these costs by 30% can lead to having a much more profitable process, which would translate into greater competitiveness against their competitors.

But there is another factor to consider. For these companies, the volume of business is very important. The margin per Kg of meat produced is not very large, so they need to market big quantities of meat so that the margin of exploitation is sufficient. If a medium-large or large slaughterhouse (between 5000-10000 pigs slaughtered per day) drastically reduces operating costs, and dedicates that increase of margin to reducing the price of meat, it can lead companies that havenâ€™t wanted or couldnâ€™t been able to reduce their energetic costs, to reduce their income below fixed costs, which could change the profile of the companies that make up the international meat market. In a global market, very sensitive to small price variations, where a few cents can lead large purchasing centers for Asian or Russian markets to relocate their sources of meat supply, such a destabilizing element could change the configuration of the meat market, on a scale that at the moment, we would not know how to value, but that would undoubtedly have important social repercussions.

At the moment, with an incipient commercial action and the pilot plant still under construction, we understand that the impact of PIGHEAT is still nul, however we expect that in the coming months the company that accomodates it, Matadero FrigorÃfico AvinyÃ³, S.A. will be able to provide us with feedback related to the profit obtained from costs reduction that PIGHEAT can attain, and from that moment we will be able to confirm if our forecasts are met.