Moving from recipe-driven to measurement-based cleaning procedures: Monitoring the Cleaning-In-Place process of whey filtration units by ultraviolet spectroscopy and chemometrics

• Clean-In-Place of ultrafiltration membrane for whey is studied by ultraviolet spectroscopy (UV).
• The cleaning dynamics of membranes can be effectively monitored by UV and chemometrics.
• The presence of multiple membrane cleaning mechanisms is revealed by UV.
• Membrane flushing dynamics can be monitored by UV and chemometrics.
• Whey components can be quantified down to the lower ppm range by UV and chemometrics.

We investigate the potential of ultraviolet spectroscopy (UV) to monitor cleaning of whey filtration membrane units. Based on sample collections in a full scale production environment two cases of cleaning monitoring by UV are evaluated. The first case demonstrates that UV can measure progress during both recirculation cleaning and the subsequent flushing of cleaning agents. The second case establishes that kinetics during the enzymatic cleaning step can be followed by UV and shows that different cleaning mechanisms are acting simultaneously. We also assess the detection limit for different whey components in a mixture design. Results show that UV in combination with partial least squares regression can quantify whey components down to between 10–20 ppm for whey protein, 5–9 ppm for whey fat, and 60–80 ppm for non-protein/fat solids.

Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide