No whey! Cheese waste turned into fuel?
- Published
Scottish scientists have come up with a 'grate whey' to turn cheese waste into fuel.
Whey is the watery liquid left over from making cheese.
Some cheese waste contains milk sugars and lots of salt, which means dairy companies can't simply pour it away or easily reuse it.
In large amounts, it could cause problems for soil, water and waste treatment systems.
Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh worked with a company called Take Root Bio to see if salty whey could be turned into something useful.
They found a way to make it into bioethanol, a type of fuel.
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This image shows the process of making mozzarella cheese, which drains off the whey from the cheese
About 95,000 tonnes of salty whey are made in the UK each year from cheddar and similar cheeses. Some dairy producers can create tens of thousands of litres every week. So the challenge of getting rid of salty whey waste is significant.
Kirk Siderman-Wolter, founder of Take Root Bio, said: "We've always been interested in what happens when you stop looking at something as waste and start asking what else it could become."
He added: "Salty whey is produced in huge volumes and can be difficult to deal with, so we wanted to find out whether there was a better use for it.
"If we can help turn something that currently costs money to manage into something with real value, that's a positive outcome for both dairy producers and the environment."
More work is needed before the idea can be used widely, so researchers are looking at whether small mobile production units could be placed closer to dairies, so the salty whey does not have to be transported far.
