Techno-economic evaluation of wine lees refining for the production of value-added products

The cost-competitiveness of a refining process using wine lees for the production of ethanol, antioxidant rich extract, calcium tartrate and yeast cells was evaluated in this study via process design and preliminary techno-economic evaluation. Process design was performed using the commercial process simulator UniSim (Honeywell). A sensitivity analysis was carried out to estimate the minimum selling price of the antioxidant-rich extract that should be achieved at different plant capacities in order to develop a profitable wine lees refining process. Minimum selling prices of the antioxidant-rich extract in the range of 122-11.06 $/kg are required in order to develop profitable refining schemes with wine lees processing capacities of 500 to 5000 kg/h considering 120 days of annual operating time. The final products could be used in various industrial segments including food, feed, chemical and cosmetic industries. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.