FILTRATE – Understanding critical processing parameters to design novel improved functional milk protein concentrations

The dairies use a number of different technologies to manufacture the products. These technologies include the use of heat treatment, to concentrate certain ingredients or make the products more uniform in their physical structure. One of these technologies is membrane filtration. The FILTRATE project uncovers how membrane filtration affects the stability and functionality of milk protein concentrates. This knowledge can in the long run be used to develop new products based on milk concentrates.

By: Grith Mortensen

Milk concentrations, obtained by membrane filtration, are used as value added ingredients in dairy products. As we concentrate milk, casein proteins, present in milk as colloidal aggregates called casein micelles, get closer to one another, and eventually start reorganizing their assembled structure. This will cause changes in reactivity (functionality) of the proteins present in the concentrate. Very little is known of the molecular structures forming during the concentration process.

The FILTRATE-project aims to 1) understand these changes; 2) discover which are the most critical processing conditions; 3) find ways to exploit them in some industrial applications.