Lifecycle modelling of an innovative durum wheat debranner

Debranning is a very common technique in the grinding process of many cereals. It has the aim of removing part of the outer layers from the kernels prior to the milling process, improving production yield and product refinement. Debranning is performed using specific machines with vertical configuration. They consist of a cylindrical perforated stator and of several rotating grinding wheel arranged in series. This study focuses on the substitution of the silicon carbide grinding wheels, traditionally used in debranning systems, with innovative diamond wheels. We exploited a set of key performance indicators (KPIs) to compare the two alternatives and to develop a life-cycle model of the diamond wheels. This model allowed to obtain some important technical and economic findings, and demonstrated that diamond wheels have potential to provide more effective results compared to the traditional wheels, from both the economic and reliability perspective.