Regular articleTechno-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.