Overview
For 160 years dairy safety has meant one thing: heat the milk. ARBOK-STERIVAC kills the pathogen — including *Mycobacterium bovis* (bovine TB) — without cooking a single degree. Under deep vacuum, milk boils not at 100 °C but at room temperature. ARBOK-Evaporation works on phase separation: no catalysts, no membranes, no consumables, no reagents, no cavitation, no magnets, no complex machinery, spending just 1–2 kWh of electricity per ton of milk with heat recovery up to 98%. Together with ARBOK Dry Milk (powder without spray-drying) and ARBOK Dairy Waste (zero-effluent recovery), STERIVAC completes a dairy plant with no thermal core at all: up to 65 €/t of energy removed, settling ponds eliminated, and a net margin that effectively doubles. The industry should get used to a new phrase: cold pasteurization.
Thermal pasteurization carries a stack of hidden costs: protein burn-on fouling heat-exchanger plates; scale and biofilm in pipes and tanks; constant acid–alkali cleaning (CIP) with reagents, water, and downtime; wear and replacement of exchanger plates; a double load of heating then chilling to ~4 °C; wash-water effluent with high BOD/COD; and enormous electricity consumption. Pasteurization, evaporation, and drying account for up to 98% of a dairy's process energy, and energy is 5–15% of the cost of milk, yogurt, or cheese — against a processor net margin often of just 2–6%.
Applications
Any stream currently pushed through thermal pasteurization: drinking milk, yogurt mixes, milk for cheese, and whey. Broader Milk Refinery concept (MILK → WATER + FOOD + INGREDIENTS) opens markets in drinking milk, cheese, casein, whey proteins, milk powder, lactose, process water, effluent treatment, and recovery of production losses.
Operating Principle
Under deep vacuum a pathogen — bacterium, virus, protozoan, fungus — goes through violent cold boiling: dissolved gases are torn out of the cytoplasm, causing osmotic collapse, membrane rupture, and dehydration. The cell bursts from the inside like a soap bubble. Thermal pasteurization cannot apply that set of stresses. The vacuum additionally strips dissolved oxygen and CO₂ from the medium, so aerobic bacteria and molds have nothing to breathe and no way to survive or recover. The pathogen is not cooked; it is destroyed mechanically. One process covers several jobs at once: sanitary treatment of the milk, degassing, and — when needed — concentration up to a concentrate for cheese or milk powder.
Key Parameters
| Parameter | Value |
|—|—|
| Electricity consumption | 1–2 kWh per ton of milk |
| Heat recovery | Up to 98% |
| Processing temperature | Room temperature (no heating) |
| Thermal-scheme energy intensity (reference) | ~220 kWh/t |
| Water recovery | 93–99.98% |
| Effluent processing cost | $0.12–0.24/t (vs $20–150/t conventional) |
| Target pathogens | *Mycobacterium bovis*, *Brucella* spp., *Listeria monocytogenes*, *Salmonella* spp., *E. coli* O157:H7, *Campylobacter* |
| Documented kill (ARBOK-Evaporation, industrial scale) | 100% for *Cronobacter sakazakii*, *Salmonella*, *Listeria monocytogenes*, *Bacillus cereus*, *Clostridium* spores, *Staphylococcus aureus*, *E. coli*, molds, yeasts, parasites |
Architecture and Components
Deep-vacuum ARBOK-Evaporation platform performing phase separation with intensive degassing (removal of dissolved oxygen and CO₂). No catalysts, membranes, consumables, reagents, cavitation, magnets, or complex machinery. One platform replaces the pasteurizer, the deaerator, the evaporator, part of the drying equipment, the effluent-treatment plant, and the water-recovery system.
Advantages
Safety without heat and without the "boiled" note; flavor preserved, less protein denaturation, better vitamin retention, less whey-protein damage. Built-in degassing extends shelf life and protects vitamins — removing dissolved oxygen reduces fat oxidation, rancidity, and vitamin loss, which is especially valuable for cheese. Independence from raw-milk quality: the system simultaneously removes water, degasses, lowers bacterial load, and stabilizes the product, sharply widening the range of acceptable raw material. Excess water becomes a salable distillate instead of a penalty. Logistics: 100 t of milk contain roughly 87 t of water and 13 t of solids, so on-farm concentration even twofold cuts transport, fuel use, number of trips, and refrigeration load. Effluent: whey is converted into water, protein concentrate, and lactose concentrate, creating a Zero Waste Dairy — settling ponds and lagoons are not needed and 100% of dairy effluent is processed on-site. Penalties for high BOD, high COD, fat in wastewater, and whey discharges are avoided, and product losses to the drain (several percent of turnover) are returned to the cycle. Antibiotic traces may be partly removed or concentrated separately during vacuum treatment — a direction requiring research.
Integrations
ARBOK-Evaporation · Arbok-DryMilk (vacuum dehydration at 20–40 °C instead of spray drying at 150–200 °C) · ARBOK Dairy Waste (zero-effluent recovery)
Deployment & Operation
Deployed as a direct replacement of the pasteurization step in existing dairy plants, folding sanitary treatment, degassing, and concentration into one vacuum operation. Recommended validation path starts with whey rather than milk — cheaper, easier to handle, and already carrying most of the problems milk presents.
TRL
ARBOK-Evaporation has proven the mechanism at industrial scale with a documented 100% kill of *Cronobacter sakazakii*, *Salmonella*, *Listeria monocytogenes*, *Bacillus cereus*, *Clostridium* spores, *Staphylococcus aureus*, *E. coli*, molds, yeasts, and parasites. STERIVAC is the first application of this physics to raw milk ahead of cheese and drinking-milk production; challenge-study and pilot tracks are being opened, starting with whey. [числовой уровень TRL — требует уточнения из базы]
Market Potential
Every dairy plant currently running thermal pasteurization. Milk Refinery concept opens drinking milk, cheese, casein, whey proteins, milk powder, lactose, process water, effluent treatment, and recovery of production losses. Recovered material values: lactose ~$1,000/t; proteins $800–1,500/t; fats $1,000–1,500/t.
Typical Project Economics
Reference plant: 200 t/day, about 70,000 t/year. Thermal-scheme energy intensity (pasteurization, evaporation, drying) ~220 kWh/t versus 2 kWh/t for ARBOK-Evaporation — a gap of ~218 kWh per ton. At 0.30 €/kWh the thermal scheme costs 66.00 € per ton of product against 0.60 €/t for ARBOK, a saving of 65.40 €/t. In the US at $0.12/kWh: $26.40/t versus $0.24/t, a $26.16/t saving. For a 70,000 t/year plant this is about 4.58 M€ per year (about $1.83M/year in the US), excluding gas for heating and cold for chilling.
At a product cost of about 300 € per ton this is roughly minus 20% on unit cost in the EU (about 9% in the US). With a processor net margin of 2–6%, such a saving effectively doubles plant profit at the same volumes and with no loss of quality. Add recovery of 93–99.98% of water, effluent processing at $0.12–0.24/t instead of $20–150/t, and recovery of lactose, proteins, and fats that previously went down the drain.
Risk Factors
Validation still required specifically on *Mycobacterium bovis*, *Listeria monocytogenes*, *Salmonella enterica*, *Brucella abortus*, and *Escherichia coli* O157:H7 — a reduction of at least 5–6 log on these organisms is needed to establish a new category of milk treatment. Vacuum is almost nowhere treated as a stand-alone pasteurization tool in the literature, usually only as an auxiliary factor. Antibiotic-residue removal is a promising but unproven direction.
Related Technologies
ARBOK-Evaporation · Arbok-DryMilk · ARBOK Dairy Waste · ARBOK-MILK BIOSAFE