ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT AND EFFICIENCY OF GREEN TECHNOLOGIES APPLIED TO THE COFFEE POST-HARVEST PROCESS
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32404/rean.v13i1.10306Keywords:
Wastewater, Eco-friendly post-harvest process, Water consumption, Green technologiesAbstract
Eco-friendly coffee processing aims to minimize environmental impact, with emphasis on reducing water consumption and wastewater pollution. In this context, this study evaluated the environmental impact and efficiency of two green technologies used in the post-harvest process: Ecoline® (ECL) and Ecowasher® (ECW), implemented on two coffee farms located in the department of Huila, Colombia. The variables analysed included coffee cherry mass, pulping and washing time, water consumption, wastewater volume, processing throughput, percentage of damaged beans, and physicochemical characteristics of the wastewater. The collected data were analysed using descriptive statistics and graphical analyses to compare the repeated measurements obtained under the evaluated operating conditions. Under the evaluated operating conditions, the ECL system demonstrated higher processing throughput (359.7 vs. 316.6 kg h-1 of cherry coffee), whereas the ECW system achieved lower water consumption (0.25 vs. 0.76 L kg-1 of cherry coffee) and a lower percentage of damaged beans (0.60% vs. 0.83%). However, wastewater generated by both technologies did not meet several regulatory discharge limits. These findings suggest that both evaluated processing systems can reduce water consumption compared with conventional wet processing; however, the observed differences should be interpreted within the specific conditions of the two farms evaluated.
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