Integration of Membrane Processes for By-Product Valorization to Improve the Eco-Efficiency of Small/Medium Size Cheese Dairy Plants.

Antónia Macedo,Eunice Cambóias,José Bilau,Elizabeth Duarte

doi:10.3390/foods10081740

Antónia Macedo, Eunice Cambóias + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/foods10081740

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Abstract

Goat and second cheese whey from sheep’s milk are by-products of the manufacture of goat cheeses and whey cheeses from sheep. Due to their composition which, apart from water—about 92%—includes lactose, proteins, fat, and minerals, and the elevated volumes generated, these by-products constitute one of the main problems facing to cheese producers. Aiming to add value to those by-products, this study evaluates the efficiency of ultrafiltration/diafiltration (UF/DF) for the recovery of protein fraction, the most valuable component. For a daily production of 3500 and using the experimental results obtained in the UF/DF tests, a membrane installation was designed for valorization of protein fraction, which currently have no commercial value. A Cost–Benefit Analysis (CBA) and Sensitivity Analysis (SA) were performed to evaluate the profitability of installing that membrane unit to produce three new innovative products from the liquid whey protein concentrates (LWPC), namely food gels, protein concentrates in powder and whey cheeses with probiotics. It was possible to obtain LWPC of around 80% and 64% of crude protein, from second sheep cheese whey and goat cheese whey, respectively. From a survey of commercial values for the intended applications, the results of CBA and SA show that this system is economically viable in small/medium sized cheese dairies.

Highlights

Cheese whey nutritional composition has increasingly aroused the interest for its reuse, because in addition to reducing its environmental impact, it can contribute to various benefits in the food industry, such as: improved texture; enhancement of flavor and color; increased stability; emulsifying function; gelling ability and improvement of the nutritional value of food, mainly attributed to the excellent quality of whey proteins [1,2,3]
The proximate physicochemical characterization of the following samples: raw SCW and goat cheese whey (GCW); pretreated SCW and GCW; liquid whey protein concentrates from utnhtiel tuheltnraexfitldtraay.tion (UF), LWPC (UF), and whey protein concentrates from UF/DF, LWPC (UF/DF), and UF permeates is shown in Tables 1 and 2, for SCW and GCW, respectively
As part of the installation of membranes, it is intended to develop three new products, obtained from LWPC of GCW and SCW, using membrane technology

Summary

Introduction

Cheese whey nutritional composition has increasingly aroused the interest for its reuse, because in addition to reducing its environmental impact, it can contribute to various benefits in the food industry, such as: improved texture; enhancement of flavor and color; increased stability; emulsifying function; gelling ability and improvement of the nutritional value of food, mainly attributed to the excellent quality of whey proteins [1,2,3]. When dealing with membrane processes, the major problems that can happen are related to fouling of membranes or to concentration polarization phenomena, which are responsible for the decline of permeation fluxes, and for changing the separation properties of membranes [9,10] The extent of this phenomena depends on several factors, namely composition of the cheese whey, membrane characteristics, pretreatments and monitoring of operating parameters, such as transmembrane pressure, feed flow circulation rate, and temperature [9]. Whey proteins are sources of peptides biologically active with important functions in human health—including antihypertensive, antioxidant, and antimicrobial activities—as opioids and with ability to decrease cholesterol levels in the body [16,17,18]. The integration of membrane processes for cheese whey recovery and further application in the development of new products that can diversify the cheesemaking activity, eventually increasing its profitability and contributing to the reduction of the environmental impact is very important for the sustainability of these small industries [25,26,27]

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