Screening and Scale-up of Nanofiltration Membranes for Concentration of Lactose and Real Whey Permeate

Abstract

In dairy industry huge quantities of whey accumulate as a by-product. In particular the containing lactose was not produced profitably in the past. Thus, the trend goes towards modification and sustainable use of lactose for which a concentration step is required. Nanofiltration (NF) has shown to be a good choice since partial demineralization can be realized in parallel. Therefore, in this study, 10 commercial polymer NF membranes were studied in detail and systematically for their suitability to concentrate lactose, with the proviso of high flux and high to complete rejection. Preliminary trials were conducted with flat-sheet membranes and a lactose model solution and the influence of transmembrane pressure (TMP), temperature and lactose concentration was studied. Finally, results were evaluated by using spiral wound modules and real industrial whey permeate. The results offered that a membrane screening is essentially since no correlation between molecular weight cut-off (MWCO) and permeate flow could be found. The conclusions found for the lactose model solution were in good agreement with the whey permeate, but as the ions contribute to the osmotic pressure of the feed the deviations increase in the course of concentration since ions are also partly retained.

Comparative Analysis of Donnan Steric Partitioning Pore Model and Dielectric Exclusion Applied to the Fractionation of Aqueous Saline Solutions through Nanofiltration

“…Whey concentration [23][24][25] Whey demineralization [15,26,27] Sugar reduction in nectars [15,26,27] Desalination of soy sauce [15,26,27] Juice concentration [15,26,27] Peptide fractionation [15,26,27]…”

Separation Techniques and Circular Economy

“…Additionally, the highest possible value added of the separated products is obtained to enhance the economy. This current Special Issue titled “Separation Techniques and Circular Economy” in Membranes presents the novel separation technologies involving the recovery of extracellular polymeric substances (EPSs) [ 1 ], calcium alginate (Ca-Alg) [ 2 ] in wastewater treatment, plasmid DNA in gene therapy [ 3 ], lactose in dairy industry [ 4 ], lactic acid (LA) in the fermented broth of kitchen waste [ 5 , 6 ], phenylalanine losses in neutralization dialysis (ND) [ 7 ], the removal of secondary effluent organic matter (EfOM) [ 8 ], and acetaldehyde (CH 3 CHO) in the atmosphere [ 9 ].…”

“…Nanofiltration (NF) concentration has shown to be a good choice since partial demineralization can be realized in parallel. Ten commercial polymer NF membranes were systematically studied in detail for their suitability to concentrate lactose, with the proviso of high flux and high to complete rejection [ 4 ]. Preliminary trials were conducted using flat-sheet membranes and a lactose model solution, and the influence of transmembrane pressure, temperature, and lactose concentration was studied.…”