Fouling and cleaning of whey protein concentrate fouled ultrafiltration membranes Original Research Article

Ultrafiltration membranes are used extensively in dairy industry. The formation of fouling deposits during processing of dairy fluids has a significant impact on the performance of these membranes. In the current study, performance of a 30 kDa membrane has been investigated which is used to process reconstituted whey protein concentrate. The increase in solution concentration is observed to have a varying impact on the permeate flux. 0.2 wt% caustic solution gives the best performance for cleaning the fouled membranes.