Invited review: Microfiltration-derived casein and whey proteins from milk

Abstract

Milk, a rich source of nutrients, can be fractionated into a wide range of components for use in foods and beverages. With advancements in filtration technologies, micellar caseins and milk-derived whey proteins are now produced from skim milk using microfiltration. Microfiltered ingredients offer unique functional and nutritional benefits that can be exploited in new product development. Microfiltration offers promise in cheesemaking, where microfiltered milk can be used for protein standardization to improve the yield and consistency of cheese and help with operation throughputs. Micellar casein concentrates and milk whey proteins could offer unique functional and flavor properties in various food applications. Consumer desires for safe, nutritious, and clean-label foods could be potential growth opportunities for these new ingredients. The application of micellar casein concentrates in protein standardization could offer a window of opportunity to US cheese makers by improving yields and throughputs in manufacturing plants.

Microfiltration and Ultrafiltration Process to Produce Micellar Casein and Milk Protein Concentrates with 80% Crude Protein Content: Partitioning of Various Protein Fractions and Constituents

“…The separation is determined by the membrane characteristics (molecular weight cutoff value) and the molecular size of the individual components present in the feed. Two of the major separation technologies employed in the dairy industry are ultrafiltration (UF), and microfiltration (MF) [1]. These two processes differ in membrane characteristics, pore size and operating pressure.…”

“…Dairy 2021, 2, 367-384. https://doi.org/10.3390/dairy2030029 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/dairy UF is primarily used to produce dairy ingredients that have an increased protein content and reduced lactose contents, such as milk protein concentrate (MPC) and whey protein concentrate (WPC). Since the typical UF membrane has a pore size of approximately 10 kD, it retains the fat, CN, SP and colloidal minerals, whereas particles below 10 kD in size-such as lactose and soluble minerals-pass through the membrane into the permeate [1][2][3]. A major application of UF processing is the production of MPC varying in protein content from 50% to 85%.…”

“…Mean (n = 3) protein fractions observed in capillary gel electrophoresis of permeate (MFP 1 and UFP 2 ) produced during microfiltration and ultrafiltration of skim milk using polymeric spiral-wound membranes. Means within same column not sharing common superscript are significantly different (p < 0.05) 1. MFP = micellar casein concentrate permeate 2.…”

Influence of oral movement, particle size, and zeta potential on astringency of whey protein

“…Three different whey/serum protein isolates (WPI/SPI) were sourced in duplicate lots from different processing methods (ion exchange, microfiltration of cheese whey, and direct microfiltration of skim milk). SPI is also called milk soluble whey protein and refers to whey protein isolated directly from milk rather than from fluid whey (Carter, Cheng, Kapoor, Meletharayil, & Drake, 2021). Actual protein content of liquid or powdered proteins were confirmed by an infrared spectrophotometer (Lactoscope FTIR, Delta Instruments, Drachten, the Netherlands).…”

Optimization of Spiral-Wound Microfiltration Process Parameters for the Production of Micellar Casein Concentrate

“…Compared to these systems, membrane separation systems using polymeric membranes have a smaller footprint, are inexpensive, and are familiar to most of the US dairy processors. In recent years, the interest in assessing the suitability and efficiency of polymeric MF membranes for MCC production has been increased [5,7,21,[23][24][25][26][27]. It has been shown that using ceramic membranes, over 95% of serum protein could be removed in a three-stage process in which diafiltration (DF) to a level of 200% (on the basis of feed volume) was used.…”