There has been a great interest in the phospholipids (PL) found in dairy products because of their health and functional properties. In this study, a technology that was originally developed for egg yolk PL extraction was applied to whey protein phospholipid concentrate (WPPC). This method successfully precipitated the proteins present in WPPC and extracted the lipids with a renewable alcoholic solvent, ethanol. The effect of ethanol concentration, extraction temperature, and extraction number on the recovery of total lipid, total PL, and individual PL class was evaluated. The optimum processing conditions for a combined 5-stage sequential extraction for producing a PL-enriched lipid fraction were determined to be 70% ethanol at 70°C, and the total lipid recovery, total PL recovery, and PL content achieved were 40.7, 58.1, and 45.8%, respectively. A lipid fraction with high nutritional value (high content of sphingomyelin or phosphatidylserine) can also be obtained by adjusting extraction conditions and collecting specific fractions, although the yield may decrease. Overall, producing a PL-rich lipid fraction from WPPC using ethanol extraction is feasible and scalable, and different processing conditions can be used depending on the type of lipid product desired.

There has been a great deal of interest in developing isolated dairy lipid fractions that are rich in phospholipids (PL), due to their health benefits and functional properties. Dairy by-products that contain elevated levels of PL and milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) proteins can be an excellent source for these isolates. The β stream, a by-product of anhydrous milk fat production, is an excellent candidate because it contains a higher concentration of PL than many other dairy byproducts. In this study, we investigated an economically feasible processing method to obtain these valuable components from the β stream. The use of zinc acetate and calcium acetate, along with mild heat treatment and pH adjustment, was effective in precipitating PL and proteins into a pellet fraction. With an additional extraction from the pellet using ethanol (90% at 70°C), a PL-enriched lipid fraction was obtained. The effective precipitation conditions were zinc acetate of 25 mM concentration at pH greater than 6.5 at 30°C, and calcium acetate of greater than 75 mM concentration at pH greater than 6.5 at 60°C. With ethanol extraction, PL recovery of 97.7 ± 1.7% from the zinc acetate precipitate and 94.9 ± 3.7% from calcium acetate precipitate were achieved.

Dairy phospholipids (PL) is of interest due to their health benefits and functional properties. Solvent fractionation of PL has not been commonly used in the dairy industry to fractionate milk fat to obtain or concentrate the PL. The total lipid extracted from the β stream, a waste by‐product of dairy processing, was used in this study to investigate suitable solvent and conditions to separate the neutral lipid from PL. A fixed lipid solvent ratio (1:10 g/v) was used at various fractionation temperatures (−20, 2, 15, 23, 40, and 60 °C) depending on the solvents. The use of acetone at 23 °C, not at the lower temperatures, led to a dairy lecithin product with high PL content, such as 71.5%. The more aqueous ethanol, i.e. at 70% concentration compared to 95%, was able to preferentially extract PL to form products with up to 74.7% PL, but the PL yield was much lower (26.3%) compared to acetone precipitation (97.9%). The enrichment of branch chain fatty acids proved to be very challenging due to the overlapping melting points with other fatty acids. The composition of the major fatty acids of polar and neutral lipids also showed interesting patterns that may indicate different nutritional and oxidative properties of the fractionated products.

Dairy byproducts such as whey protein phospholipid concentrate (WPPC) and buttermilk contain phospholipids (PL). A solvent extraction process (simultaneous texturization and extraction of phospholipids, STEP method) to extract PL present in WPPC, using ethanol, recovers about 70% of PL in the raw material. To understand the commercial feasibility of this technology, we simulated a scaled-up version of the process to industrial production of 3.26 kt/yr in the SuperPro Designer (version 10, http: / / www .intelligen .com) process simulation platform. Economic analysis revealed that PL can be produced at a minimum selling price (MSP) of $92.98/kg, using the scaled-up STEP method. The total investment on capital and annual operating costs were $15.51 million and $14.49 million, respectively. The uncertainty in product cost due to variations in process variables, including PL composition in raw material, product recovery, labor, and raw material costs was analyzed through sensitivity analysis. Phospholipids MSP was most sensitive to product recovery and its composition in WPPC. A reduction of almost 5% in MSP was achieved by improving either of the process parameters by 10%. By increasing the plant size 1.5 times, the product MSP could be decreased by 30% to $65.14/kg. Finally, based on our analysis, recommendations were made for scale-up and commercialization of PL extraction using the STEP method.