Abstract
Goat cheese whey is a co-product that comes from goat cheese manufacture. Due to its high organic load, adequate treatment is necessary before its disposal. Additionally, the recent growing interest in caprine products, attributed to their specific nutritional and nutraceutical characteristics, such as the lower allergenicity of their proteins and higher content of oligosaccharides, compared with bovine products, made the recovery of goat cheese whey a challenge. In this study, an integrated process for the recovery of sweet goat whey components was carried out. It includes filtration, centrifugation and pasteurization, followed by sequential membrane processes, ultrafiltration/dilution, nanofiltration of ultrafiltration permeates in dilution mode and the concentration/dilution of nanofiltration retentates. Ultrafiltration was performed with membranes of 10 and 1 kDa. Membranes of 10 kDa have higher permeate fluxes and, in a single stage of dilution, allowed for better protein retention and higher lactose purity, with a separation factor of 14. The concentration of lactose by nanofiltration/dilution led to the retention of almost all the lactose in retentates and to a final permeate, whose application in cheese dairy plants will allow for the total recovery of whey. The application of this integrated process in small- or medium-sized goat cheese dairies can represent an important contribution to their sustainability.
Highlights
Goat cheese whey is a liquid co-product of goat cheese manufacture
Despite its nutritional and nutraceutical value, goat cheese whey is usually treated as waste, deposited in septic tanks or partially mixed with the wastewaters coming from cheese washing and the cleaning operations of equipment and from the cheese dairy; it is delivered to wastewater plants
Its high values of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and biological oxygen demand (BOD5), about 50–120 g L−1 and 27–60 g L−1, respectively [6,7], can lead to the decline in treatment efficiency, transforming this co-product into one of the main environmental problems that the dairy industry has faced for decades
Summary
Goat cheese whey is a liquid co-product of goat cheese manufacture It retains about 55% of the nutrients found in milk, including lactose, soluble proteins, bioactive peptides, lipids, minerals and vitamins [1]. In comparison with bovine and sheep cheese whey, goat cheese whey contains a higher concentration of oligosaccharides, namely sialic acid, that seems to promote the development of infants’ brain [2]. It is rich in nonprotein nitrogen compounds, namely nucleotides and free amino acids, making it suitable for baby food or children with a cow’s milk allergy [3,4]. Its reuse has the advantage of generating value-added products while mitigating its negative impacts on the environment
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
