VOL. 9, NO.

9, SEPTEMBER 2014 ISSN 1819-6608

ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2014 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.

www.arpnjournals.com

ENERGY ANALYSIS OF A WHEAT PROCESSING PLANT IN NIGERIA

O. S. Olaoye, A. A. Adefajo and S. O. Ekundayo
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Ladoke Akintola University of Technology, Ogbomoso, Oyo State, Nigeria
E-Mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
Energy study was conducted in a wheat processing plant in Nigeria, to determine the energy consumption pattern
for the production of flour. Process analysis method of energy was adopted to evaluate the energy requirement for each of
the operations involved in the processing of wheat. The analysis revealed that eight defined unit operations were required
for the production of wheat flour. The types of energy used in the processing of wheat flour were electrical and manual
with the respective proportions of 99.87 and 0.13% of the total energy. Average energy intensity was estimated to be 0.101
MJ/Kg for the production of wheat flour. The most energy intensive operation was identified as the milling unit with
energy intensity of 0.073 MJ/kg (72.20%) followed by the packaging unit using 0.015 MJ/kg (14.39%). Optimization of
the milling process is suggested to make the system energy efficient.

Keyword: wheat processing, energy requirement, unit operation, Nigeria.

1. INTRODUCTION systems. Although extensive literature exists concerning

The most important resource to both human being the energy audit of many manufacturing processes such as
and industrial activities is energy. The significant of fertilizer production [2], rice processing [4], sunflower oil
energy cost in a particular processing industry is expression [5], palm-kernel oil processing [6, 7], cashew
dependent on the type of products manufactured, the nut processing [8], poultry processing [1], cassava-based
processing methods adopted and relative price of energy foods [9], milk processing [10], sugar production [11], and
[1]. In most cases, energy cost outweighs the costs of other facility design of flour mill [12] limited work has been
resources such as raw materials, personnel, depreciation reported on energy audit of wheat processing operations.
and maintenance [2, 3]. This made effective utilization of The need for adequate storage and processing, as
energy a major determinant in the overall cost of well as for all year availability of flour has made the
production as well as necessitate energy audit which is an industry very important. Wheat processing involves
important tool needed for economic utilization of energy operations such as cleaning, tempering/conditioning,
resources in industries. Inefficient and excessive usage of holding bin, and milling. These operations require high
energy could lead to economic loss and increase in costs and regular energy supply to function, thus an efficient
of goods especially in the energy intensive industries. energy system is needed. Inefficient industrial energy use
In view of this, effort should be made to ensure a could lead to huge economic losses as excessive energy
better efficient utilization of fuel, electricity, thermal consumption adds to the costs of goods produced
energy and labour, these being the major components of especially in energy intensive industries.
manufacturing cost. In Nigeria, the major sources of The aim of this study was therefore to analyze the
industrial energy are fossil fuel, natural gas, coal and energy consumption pattern of various unit operations
electricity generated by thermal and hydro-power stations. required for the wheat processing plant in Nigeria. The
The supply of electricity in the country is in acute shortage essence of the study is to identify the energy inefficiencies
and epileptic due in part to the dearth of underlying power in the unit operations as a step towards the optimization of
generation technology and old facilities of the power the system.
stations, and the problems in the transmission and the
distribution of the energy. Consequently, most companies 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS
in the country now rely mainly on the use of heavy-duty
generating plant for the supply of their electrical energy 2.1. Process description
which is used for operations such as air conditioning, A wheat processing plant located in Nigeria was
lighting and some machining processes [4]. selected for this study. The types of energy sources
The increasing energy demands coupled with the utilized in the production system were electrical and
finite energy resources, the rising cost of fossil fuels and manual. Electrical energy was the major source of energy
the considerable environmental impacts connected with used during product. Due to inconsistency in power from
their exploitation necessitate the needs to understand the the National grid, a standby generating set with a capacity
mechanisms, which degrade the quality of energy and of 1000 kVA was used as an alternative source for
energy systems. The processes that degrade the quality of electrical power supply.
energy resources can only be identified through a detailed The processing comprises eight unit operations.
analysis of the whole system [5]. This account for the The process flow chart of the production system is shown
extensive work that has been done on energy auditing in Figure-1. Wheat is received and weighed using
system of many manufacturing operations with the aim of weighing machine capable of weighing loaded trucks. The
improving the design and performance of energy transfer weight is obtained by subtracting the weight of the truck

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ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2014 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.

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when emptied from the weight when it was loaded. It is

then transferred to the storage facility where it was to be
stored using elevators and conveyors. The wheat is tested
for protein and other characteristics and graded into
various categories. This is followed by cleaning which is
done by first passing the wheat over series of coarse fine
sleeves that remove unwanted materials such as chaffs and
straws. Stones may be removed by passing wheat over
short openings that allows stones to fall out of mass and be
trapped. The wheat is then passed over a magnetic
separator to remove any metallic particle present. The
wheat is tempered/conditioned for milling by adding a
little quantity of water (usually between 4 - 6%) depending
on the initial moisture content of the wheat being milled in
order to soften the outer layer of the wheat grain to ease
milling. The wheat is then allowed to lie in the
conditioning bins for between 10 and 24 hours.
Milling is the process by which the endosperm is
extracted from the grain by passing it through series of
rollers rotating at different speeds. The break system
primarily comprised of roller mills that run in opposite
directions at different speeds. Its purpose is to separate the
endosperm from the rest of the kernel. To achieve this, the
wheat is allowed to run through the roller mills up to five
times. After this, sifters are also used to separate the
endosperm from the bran and germ which is typically a
co-product known as wheat feed.
The purification system consists of purifiers,
roller mills and sifters. Purifiers sort particles based on
size, air resistance and specific gravity. The roller mills Figure-1. Flow chart of the wheat processing operations.
further reduce the size of the particles. The reduction
system consists of roller mills and sifters in sequence. The In each of the unit operation, the power rating of
roller mills in this sequence are smooth, resulting in a finer the electrical devices and capacity of each unit were
grind. This phase reduces the endosperm to flour. This collected from plant’s manager. The production processes
process is repeated up to 11 times to obtain the finess were monitored and data collected over a period of 1year.
required for the flour. The mill products are flour (75%), The measuring quantities used in the course of the data
semolina (3%) and bran (22%). The finished product acquisition include: (i) a stopwatch for measuring the time
(flour) was then bagged in 50 kg bags. The bagging spent in each unit, (ii) a measuring cylinder for measuring
process includes the following operations such as loading, the amount of water and (iii) a weighing balance for
weighing and sewing. The energy input into each unit measuring the quantity of materials used. The data for the
operation was accounted for by noting and quantifying the time and energy input into each of the unit operations are
type of energy used which was either one or a combination presented in Table-1.
of electrical and manual energy. All electric motors in the
plant were identified, and the amperage and horsepower 2.3 Estimation of energy input into each unit operation
rating, number of phases and voltage were noted to enable (quantity)
the estimation of electrical energy. The energy components (electrical and manual)
from each source were calculated for the wheat processing
2.2. Data acquisition using the following procedure.
The primary energy resources utilized in the plant
for production were electrical and/or manual energy. An 2.3.1. Electrical energy
inventory of the electric motors, power rating of the The electric energy used by the equipment was
machines, number of personnel involved, time required for obtained by finding the rated power of each motor and the
production in each unit operation and material flow was number of hours of operation. A motor efficiency of 80%
made. was assumed to compute the electric inputs [5].
This was calculated mathematically as:

Ep = ηPt (1)

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ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
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Where Ep is the electrical energy consumed in kW h, P is output of a normal human labourer in tropical climates is
the rated power of motor in kW, t, the hours of operation approximately 0.075kW sustained for an 8-10 h workday.
in hours and η, the power factor (assumed to be 0.8). This was calculated mathematically as:

2.3.2. Manual energy Em = 0.075Nt (2)

This was estimated based on the values
recommended by Odigboh [13]. According to him, at the where Em is the manual energy in kW h, 0.075 is the
maximum continuous energy consumption rate of 0.30kW average power of a normal human labour in kW, N is the
and conversion efficiency of 25%, the physical power number of persons involved in an operation and t useful
time spent to accomplish a given task in hours.

Table-1. Required parameters for evaluating energy in organic fertilizer plant.

Unit operation Required parameters Value
Time taken (h) 2
Truck unloading
Number of persons involved 6
Electrical power (kW) 49
Intake Number of persons involved 1
Time taken (h) 6
Electrical power (kW) 30.23
Cleaning Number of persons involved 1
Time taken (h) 10
Electrical power (kW) 26.80
Tempering Number of persons involved 1
Time taken (h) 8
Electrical power (kW) 31.13
Holding Bin Number of persons involved 1
Time taken (h) 3
Electrical power (kW) 529.39
Milling Number of persons involved 2
Time taken (h) 12
Electrical power (kW) 109.55
Finished product
Number of persons involved 1
storage
Time taken (h) 2
Electrical power (kW) 62.79
Packaging Number of persons involved 6
Time taken (h) 18

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS 3.1. Energy expenditure

The energy accounting data was analyzed based The time and energy for the production of
on an input of 250 tonnes of wheat flour during a double 250tonnes of wheat flour is given in Table-2. Information
shift of 11 hours per shift in a day for a year. Electrical on the energy requirement of each processing unit was
energy utilized during production was obtained either from known using the energy consumption data obtained. It was
the national grid or the company’s power generating set. revealed that the total energy requirement for the
The electrical energy consumption data as well as the production of wheat flour was 25339.469 MJ. The total
operating time for all equipments requiring electrical energy intensities were estimated to be 0.101 MJ/kg at a
energy were obtained. The manual energy was obtained cost of N0.6936491/kg. It was noted that only two
based on the total number of workers per shift. The processes (truck unloading and packaging) required
manual energy used was small due to the comparative high manual energy putting the percentage of manual energy in
level of automation of the factory. the total generated energy at 0.13%. This also shows the

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level of automation of the company. The most energy of production. The design modification option will involve
intensive operating unit in the production system was increasing the efficiency of the milling process; this will
identified as the milling unit with 18295.718MJ of energy decrease the use of purifier. Also if the efficiency of the
followed by packaging with 3645.864MJ accounting for milling process can be improved, it will reduce the number
72.20% (0.073 MJ/kg) and 14.39% (0.015 MJ/kg) of the of repeated processes and energy consumption will be
energy required for production, respectively. reduced. However, additional cost of investment will be
To optimize the energy consumption of the required for the process modification option, while
milling unit, process and/or machine design modifications minimal additional cost may be required for the machine
will be required. The process modifications option will be design modification option. Therefore, in terms of cost
in the conditioning. If the wheat is properly conditioned, effectiveness the machine design modification is
the repetitions in the milling process will be reduced. This considered to be the most feasible option.
will reduce energy consumptions and therefore reduce cost

Table-2. Time and energy requirement for the production wheat flour.
Electrical Manual Total
Operation Percentage energy
# Process energy Epi energy energy Eti
time (h) (Eti/Ettt)*100(%)
(MJ) Emi (MJ) (MJ)
Truck
1 2 - 3.240 3.240 0.01
unloading
2 Intake/storage 6 1006.560 - 1006.560 3.97
3 Cleaning 10 870.624 - 870.624 3.44
4 Tempering 8 617.472 - 617.624 2.44
5 Holding bin 3 268.963 - 268.983 1.06
6 Milling 12 18295.718 - 18295.718 72.20
Finished
7 2 613.008 - 631.008 2.49
product storage
8 Packaging 18 3616.704 29.160 3645.864 14.39
Total 25307.069 32.400 25339.469 100.00
Percentage of total
99.87 0.13 100.000
(%)
8 8 8
Ep tt = ∑ Ep i , Emtt = ∑ Emi , Et tt = ∑ Et i
i =1 i =1 i =1

The energy and mass flow diagrams for the wheat operations. The wheat processing plant involves eight
processing plant are shown in Figure-2, using the modified defined unit operations.
form of energy accounting symbol presented by [14]. The The two main sources of electrical energy utility
electrical and manual energy consumption together with in the plant were the National grid and generating set. The
the material mass flow was assigned to each unit acute energy crisis in the country often necessitated the
use of power generator for most of the production time.

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Mass flow (kg)

Manual Energy (MJ)

Electrical Energy (MJ)

Unit Operation

Production System

Figure-2. Energy and mass flow diagram of wheat processing plant.

4. CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES
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