Overview
A dairy plant loses product twice. Once to the drain, where wash water, whey discharges and fat carry away several percent of turnover, and once to the penalties and treatment charges that the same effluent attracts because of its high BOD and COD.
ARBOK Dairy Waste is the branch that closes both. All wash water and effluent are processed on site by vacuum phase separation, and the recovered fraction returns to production instead of leaving as load. Settling ponds and lagoons stop being necessary at all — not reduced, but removed from the plant layout.
Together with ARBOK-STERIVAC on pasteurization and Arbok-DryMilk on powder, it completes a dairy plant with no thermal core.
Applications
Dairy processing plants of any size: milk, cheese, yogurt and whey lines. The effluent streams addressed are clean-in-place wash water, whey discharges and fat-bearing wastewater.
Operating Principle
Effluent is separated under deep vacuum at the temperature of the surroundings, with no heat supplied. Water passes to the vapour phase and is condensed; the dissolved and suspended organic matter — the product that went down the drain — remains and is recovered.
Because 100 % of the plant's effluent is treated at source, there is no stream left requiring settling ponds, lagoons or discharge to a municipal works, and the recovered fraction is returned to the process, which lowers unit cost a second time.
Composition of the recovered fraction, the points at which it re-enters production, and food-safety handling of the return: [требует уточнения из базы].
Key Parameters
| Parameter | Value |
|—|—|
| Process temperature | ambient — no heat supplied, no setpoint |
| Effluent treated | 100 % on site |
| Settling ponds and lagoons | not required |
| Product losses recovered | several percent of turnover currently lost to the drain |
| Effluent load addressed | high BOD, high COD, fat, whey |
| Energy of the platform's evaporation stage | 2 kWh/t (per ARBOK-Evaporation figure in the same source) |
| Throughput, module size, recovery rate | [требует уточнения из базы] |
Architecture and Components
Deep-vacuum separation stage on the plant's effluent line, vapour condensation and water return, recovered-solids collection and return path to production.
Equipment specification and footprint: [требует уточнения из базы].
Advantages
Recovers product, not just water. The several percent of turnover that leaves as drain losses is returned to the cycle rather than treated as waste.
Removes the penalty exposure. High BOD, high COD, fat in wastewater and whey discharges are the standing causes of dairy effluent penalties; treating at source removes the discharge that triggers them.
Changes plant layout. Settling ponds and lagoons are eliminated, not merely made smaller.
Completes the non-thermal plant. With STERIVAC replacing pasteurization and DryMilk replacing spray drying, this branch removes the last thermal and effluent load from the site.
Integrations
ARBOK-STERIVAC · Arbok-DryMilk · ARBOK-MILK BIOSAFE · ARBOK-Purification · Arbok Zero-Organic-Waste (AZOW)
The source presents Dairy Waste, STERIVAC and Dry Milk as three branches of one dairy programme rather than as separate products.
Deployment & Operation
Installed on site at the dairy plant, on the effluent line, so that no stream leaves the building untreated.
Commissioning, service and operator requirements: [требует уточнения из базы].
TRL
TRL 8 — проставлен Михаилом 2026-08-06.
The source refers to this branch as forthcoming relative to STERIVAC; no readiness rating is recorded in the base.
Market Potential
Every dairy processing plant carries the same effluent profile, and product losses to drain are an accepted line in the industry. In the same source the sector's net margin is given as 2–6 %, which makes a recovery of several percent of turnover material rather than incremental.
Quantified market sizing: [требует уточнения из базы].
Typical Project Economics
— the economics in the source are stated for the STERIVAC branch (energy saving of 65.40 €/t of product on a 200 t/day plant, about 4.58 M€/year at 70,000 t/year and 0.30 €/kWh), not for the effluent branch separately.
Risk Factors
No separate readiness rating, throughput figure or recovery rate is recorded for this branch; the numbers in the source belong to STERIVAC. Returning recovered material to a food production line requires food-safety qualification that is not documented in the base. The claim that settling ponds become unnecessary depends on treating 100 % of effluent, which has to hold at peak wash cycles rather than on average. Dairy plants are conservative and capital-constrained at 2–6 % net margin.
Related Technologies
ARBOK-STERIVAC · Arbok-DryMilk · ARBOK-MILK BIOSAFE · ARBOK-Purification · Arbok Zero-Organic-Waste (AZOW) · ARBOK-FRYLOOP