Recipient Organization
HARRIS ACOUSTIC PRODUCTS CORPORATION
141 WASHINGTON STREET
EAST WALPOLE,MA 02032-1155
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Milk prices have steadily increased over the past two decades; however, the price paid to farmers has remained around $1.00 per gallon over the last two decades. This has resulted in many small dairy farmers getting out of the business. The purpose of this project is to design a system that a small dairy farmer can use to process milk so that he can send it directly to the consumer and avoid the added cost of delivering the milk to a larger distributor for processing.
Animal Health Component
100%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
100%
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
To provide the small dairy farmer the capability of carrying out their own milk processing. Typically, pasteurization/homogenization operations are carried out at the wholesale level in large plants capable of processing 1,000 to 45,000 gallons of milk per hour. Such capacities, and the large capital requirement, act as a barrier to entry for small dairy farmers and prohibits them from getting a better price by carrying out their own milk processing.
Project Methods
Acoustic cavitation will be used as the means to pasteurize/homogenize milk. Use of acoustic cavitation for neutralizing pathogens is well known in the literature. Harris Acoustic Products is proposing a new pasteurization/homogenization treatment using sonication as an inexpensive and practical way to fill the need.