SBIR-STTR Award

Milk supply by the small dairy farms to the local markets not only reduces transportation costs but also provides cultural and economic benefits to the communities. However, the majority of the milk processing operations are carried out in large plants at the wholesale level. Such capacities and the large capital requirement act as a barrier to entry for small farmers and prohibit them to get a better price by carrying out their own milk processing. Harris Acoustic Products is proposing a degassing/homogenization treatment of milk using sonication to USDA as an inexpensive and practical way for small dairy farmers to process the milk for longer shelf life. OBJECTIVES: Cavitation is the phenomenon of creation and implosion of microscopic bubbles in a fluid and is caused by rapid changes in the fluid pressure. The primary mechanism of inducing the rapid change in pressure is transmitting ultrasound in the fluid using piezoelectric transducers. Cavitation has already proven effective in neutralizing pathogens in the water. The objective of this phase-I research is to assess the effectiveness of acoustic cavitation in degassing and homogenization of milk. Homogenization prevents creaming of the milk. The dissolved gases present in the milk offer the chance of microbiological contamination. APPROACH: A small cavitation chamber will be developed using transducers manufactured by Harris Acoustic Products. The chamber will be used to assess the degree of homogenization and degassing. The effectiveness for various parameters such as power, duration, frequency etc. will be assessed a using dissolved oxygen monitoring sensor and a droplet size measuring laser diffraction instrument.