Cake formation and the decreased performance of whey ultrafiltration

Abstract

© 2017, Eduem - Editora da Universidade Estadual de Maringa. All rights reserved. Fouling in whey ultrafiltration is still a problem to be solved and modelling the permeate flux is still a challenge. A set of experiments of whey ultrafiltration was performed and it was demonstrated that the cake filtration model accurately represents the permeate flux over time despite exist more complex models to describe the phenomenon. In less than 10 s an irreversible resistance is established, and the cake starts to build up. It was observed changes in protein rejection in a range of 98 and 94% when a higher cake layer was set up, but it was not noticed strong evidences that the layer deposited on the membrane surface drives this change.