Fouling and cleaning of whey protein concentrate fouled ultrafiltration membranes

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.