A Waikato University chemical engineer awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the United States says his research on energy efficiency at dairy factories in California will have benefits for dairy plants in this country.
Michael Walmsley will be based at the University of California Davis for five months from early next year.
California is the largest milk producer in the United States, producing about 17 million litres of milk a year, which is similar to this country.
Dr Walmsley says the way the industry operates in California is different to New Zealand.
He says the thrust of his research is going to be looking at how New Zealand and California can reduce fossil fuel dependency in dairy factories.
"One of the products that's made that uses a lot of energy is milk powder because you have to dry, or take out all the water. As a result it uses a lot of natural gas and heat," he says.
Dr Walmsley says exhaust gas heat recovery can improve energy efficiency in milk powder drying by up to 15%.
"One idea is to capture the heat from the exhaust of the spray dryer and use that to pre-heat the incoming air."
Dr Walmsley says New Zealand does not use that technique at present but two factories in California do, so he will be visiting them to look at how they manage the process and make it work economically.
