AQUAREL: Project Aimed at Improving Water Management in French Dairy Plants

The AQUAREL project was launched in 2015 by the CNIEL (French Dairy Interbranch Organization) to propose solutions to dairy processors for the development of water reuse scenarios on their plants. The project focused particularly on the valorization of water from milk which is water obtained during concentration and evaporation processes of milk and its by-products. Firstly, a literature review was done to identify the current uses of water from milk on French plants but also on foreign sites, the technologies used to treat it and the regulations related to water reuse in food industry. Secondly, a field survey was led to establish an overview of the water consumptions and practices existing on the plants. Then, samples were collected on five dairy plants in order to determine the physico-chemical and microbiological composition of water from milk. Thus, the important collection of results obtained was used as a basis for exchanges with water treatment equipment suppliers in order to identify the suitable technologies to treat and reuse water from milk. Two treatment channels were identified, each of them including a filtration and a disinfection step. All this work led to the writing of reports which are now available for the dairy sector professionals.