Evaluation of Nine Semi‐pilot Scale Whey Pretreatment Modifications for Producing Whey Protein Concentrate

Abstract

Cheese whey was chemically pretreated and subjected to one of nine semi-pilot scale, physical pretreatment modifications involving various combinations of centrifugal clarification (CC) and/or microfiltration (MF) to remove residual lipids and phospholipoprotein complexes. Two pretreatment modifications were most effective for producing whey with least turbidity and lowest lipid and phosphoIipid contents. Whey given these two pretreatments provided highest ultrfiltration (UF) membrane flux rate and upon drying of the UF retentate resulted in the most highly functional WPCs in terms of solubility, foam expansion, emulsifying activity and gelation.

Chemical Pretreatment and Microfiltration for Making Delipidized Whey Protein Concentrate

“…Process B whey, which was preconcentrated to VCR 6.5 at pH 3 and adjusted to pH 4.6 to isoelectrically precipitate PLPC exhibited the highest final UF membrane flux of about 18 L m-* m-l. Whey at pH 3.0 exhibited the next highest final UF membrane permeate flux of about 6 L mm2 hr-I. These confirmed results of other researchers who stated that adjusting whey to pH 3 (Lee and Merson, 1976;Patocka and Jelen, 1987), and chemical pretreatment of whey (Maubois et al, 1987;Rinn et al, 1990) improve UF membrane permeate flux. Permeate Volume (L) a-La and p-Lg during collection of the first 1OL of permeate by MF 0.45, whereas MF 0.1 pm exhibited a pronounced increase in permeation ratio.…”

“…8, Table 2) for immunoglobulin contents of WPC C and P (6.6 and 6.7%, respectively) were similar to those reported by Rinn et al (1990). All other WPC contained lower Ig concentrations, ranging from 1.7% (MF 0.45) to 0.3% (MF 0.1) (P < 0.05), due probably to removal of this large molecular weight, i.e., 2 146 kDa (Morr and Ha, 1993), protein by MF processing and by processing associated with the Breslau et al (1975) 5.6 for all WPC except MF 0.1 and 0.45, due also to the likely removal of this large-molecular-weight (i.e., 66 kDa) protein during MF fractionation.…”

“…It was evaluated by Fauquant et al (1985), Pierre and Fauquant (1986), and Maubois et al (1987) and modified for continuous operation by Lehmann and Wasen (1990). The resulting PLPC aggregate has been removed from the whey by cross-flow microfiltration (MF) (Maubois et al, 1987) by centrifugal clarification (Kim et al, 1989), and by perpendicular flow MF (Rinn et al, 1990).…”

Foaming and Emulsifying Properties of Whey Protein Concentrates As Affected by Lipid Composition

“…The low foaming properties of commercial WPC sample could be ascribed to the higher residual lipid content than found in the experimental samples. Many researchers have observed a similar detrimental effect of high residual lipids on foaming properties of WPC (Breslau et al, 1975;Grindstaff, 1975;Kim et al, 1989;Marshall, 1982;Maubois et al, 1987;Rinn et al, 1990). Though WPC -D had lower residual lipids than control WPC (samples A & B), foaming capacities were similar, while foam stabilities improved only about 8%.…”

“…IT IS EXTREMELY DIFFICULT to remove all residual lipids from whey protein products (Kilara, 1994). Investigators have successfully applied various pretreatments to produce whey protein concentrates with reduced lipid content and improved functional properties (Breslau et al, 1975;Fauquant et al, 1985;Gault et al, 1990;Grindstaff, 1975;Kim et al, 1989;Lehmann and Wasen, 1990;Marshall, 1982;Maubois et al, 1987;Rinn et al, 1990). However, no reports have been published on the effects of lipid class composition on functional properties of whey protein concentrates.…”