Comparative Assessment of Tubular Ceramic, Spiral Wound, and Hollow Fiber Membrane Microfiltration Module Systems for Milk Protein Fractionation

Abstract

The fractionation efficiency of hollow fiber membranes (HFM) for milk protein fractionation was compared to ceramic tubular membranes (CTM) and spiral wound membranes (SWM). HFM combine the features of high membrane packing density of SWM and the more defined flow conditions and better control of membrane fouling in the open flow channel cross-sections of CTM. The aim was to comparatively analyze the effect of variations in local pressure and flow conditions while using single industrially sized standard modules with similar dimensions and module footprints (module diameter and length). The comparative assessment with varied transmembrane pressure was first applied for a constant feed volume flow rate of 20 m3 h−1 and, secondly, with the same axial pressure drop along the modules of 1.3 bar m−1, similar to commonly applied crossflow velocity and wall shear stress conditions at the industrial level. Flux, transmission factor of proteins (whey proteins and serum caseins), and specific protein mass flow per area membrane and per volume of module installed were determined as the evaluation criteria. The casein-to-whey protein ratios were calculated as a measure for protein fractionation effect. Results obtained show that HFM, which so far are under-represented as standard module types in industrial dairy applications, appear to be a competitive alternative to SWM and CTM for milk protein fractionation.

Bovine milk β‐casein: Structure, properties, isolation, and targeted application of isolated products

“…The choice of membrane materials will also impact the efficiency of the isolation. It has been found that under the same filtration conditions, the hollow fiber membrane, ceramic tubular membrane, and spiral wound membrane can be used to isolate casein and whey proteins (Schopf et al., 2021). The hollow fiber membrane has been found to have a higher isolation efficiency.…”

State-of-the-Art Organic- and Inorganic-Based Hollow Fiber Membranes in Liquid and Gas Applications: Looking Back and Beyond

“…On the other hand, hollow fiber membranes were also utilized in food industries, such as the filtration of protein and wine. Schopf et al compared the fractionation efficiency of milk protein using hollow fiber membranes, ceramic tubular membranes, and spiral wound membranes [ 217 ]. The developed hollow fiber membrane had a high membrane packing density and low fouling tendency while maintaining excellent fractionation.…”

Increasing Performance of Spiral-Wound Modules (SWMs) by Improving Stability against Axial Pressure Drop and Utilising Pulsed Flow

“…The main industrially used module configurations are ceramic tubular membranes (CTMs), hollow-fibre membranes (HFMs) and SWMs, which all have their typical pros and cons. Compared to CTMs and HFMs, SWMs offer the highest packing density, i.e., active membrane area per module, and thus the highest whey protein mass flow per module [ 28 ]. On the contrary, SWMs suffer from flow shadows behind spacer filaments [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 ] and, therefore, limited cleanability [ 29 ] and mechanical stability.…”