Application of Membrane Separation Technology for Developing Novel Dairy Food Ingredients

Abstract

In several processing industries, separation of different components from a mixture is an important unit operation. Sometimes the separated component is an important product, and in some instances it is a waste product. There is a variety of technologies available for use in separations, each operating based on physical and chemical properties of the mixture. One of the fundamental separation processes that brought about a major change in processing of dairy co-product streams is membrane separation technology. Membrane separations work on the basis of differences in size and shape of the molecules. Today dairy industry accounts for major share in the total membrane area installed in food processing, accounting for about 300,000 square meters of membrane area installed worldwide. Reverse Osmosis (RO), Nanofiltration (NF), Ultrafiltration (UF) and Microfiltration (MF) processes have been in use in the dairy industry for about 4-5 decades. Each of these processes is used for specific application. The phenomenal growth in the application of membrane separation technology in the dairy processing brought into focus the need for novel membranes and processes that enable production of new dairy based ingredients. Now-a-days wide pore UF process is used to develop α-Lactalbumin enriched protein products, loose NF process is used to recover and purify Oligosaccharides, high pressure UF process is used to replace the conventional NF process used for concentrating dairy product streams. In the present paper, new developments in the application of membrane separation in the dairy industry are presented along with the experimental data from the research conducted by the authors.