The use of ultrasonic feed pre-treatment to reduce membrane fouling in whey ultrafiltration

Abstract

The production of whey protein concentrate powders is often limited by the fouling of the ultrafiltration membranes and the low heat stability of the whey protein solutions. Ultrasonic treatment of whey solutions has previously been shown to break down protein aggregates and improve heat stability. This study investigates the use of ultrasound as a pre-treatment step to improve downstream ultrafiltration performance. Results show that sonication alone alleviated membrane fouling to a small extent. However, the use of ultrasound following heat exposure reduced membrane pore blockage and growth of the foulant cake greatly, relative to heat exposure in the absence of ultrasound. The extent of changes to pore blockage and cake growth was greater at higher solids concentration. In all cases, the protein concentration in the permeate remained unchanged. This work has the potential to reduce energy requirements in the ultrafiltration of whey as feed pre-treatment by both ultrasound and the combination of heat and ultrasound produced a lower viscosity feed solution.

The use of ultrasound to mitigate membrane fouling in desalination and water treatment

“…Numerous modifications to desalination membranes have been proposed in order to enhance their performance and thus reduce membrane fouling. Several studies have investigated the use of turbulence in the filtration units and its effect on improving back-transport and thus increasing the shear rate near the membrane surface, which would eventually lead to preventing particle deposition and reducing fouling [131]. The use of ultrasound technology has been proved to be an effective pretreatment technique for suppressing algal growth and biofilm which reduces the formation of biofouling on the RO/UF membranes [131][132][133].…”

“…Several studies have investigated the use of turbulence in the filtration units and its effect on improving back-transport and thus increasing the shear rate near the membrane surface, which would eventually lead to preventing particle deposition and reducing fouling [131]. The use of ultrasound technology has been proved to be an effective pretreatment technique for suppressing algal growth and biofilm which reduces the formation of biofouling on the RO/UF membranes [131][132][133]. Yet, studies related to the application of ultrasound as a sole pretreatment for membrane desalination techniques are limited and not fully understood.…”

“…In case of UF, Koh et al [131] successfully used ultrasound with a 20 KHz frequency in combination with heat treatment as a pretreatment for whey solutions: WPC80 solution and fresh whey solution in order to improve downstream ultrafiltration performance. Results showed that sonication alone had a small but significant effect on membrane fouling, however, the use of heat pretreatment in combination with ultrasound reduced the membrane pore blockage and foulant cake growth significantly especially at higher solid concentrations.…”

Modern Technologies of Milk Whey Processing in the Conditions of New Techno-Economic Paradigm

“…Zyabrev, A.A. Svitsov, etc. II. LITERATURE REVIEW Existing practices in Russia and all over the world prove that membrane technology has been recognized as a highly advisable method of whey processing that makes it possible to separate, to refine, to fraction and to concentrate similar media preserving the components in their native conditions under gentle temperatures, without water phase transition and with minimum energy loss, as compared to other technological processes [3][4][5][6]. These baromembrane processes include microfiltration, ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration and reverse osmosis (RO).…”

“…Despite obvious advantages, those processes have not been widely spread across food businesses, which can plausibly be explained by the insufficient experimental and theoretical foundations in the sphere of baromembrane processes employed for processing multiple food media, including whey [5][6][7][8]. Based on the analysis of literary sources, conclusions have been made that whey should be processed in two stages: applying ultrafiltration at the first stage to concentrate macromolecular components and applying reverse osmosis concentration of ultrafiltration permeate at the second stage to recover lactose [2,3,[7][8][9]11].…”