13

Application of Membrane Separation Technology to

Cheese Production
V.V. MISTRY

Dairy Science Department, South Dakota State University,

Brookings, SD 57007, USA

&

J.-L. MAUBOIS

Laboratoire de Recherches Laitieres, Institut National de la Recherche

Agronomique, Rennes Cedex, France

1 INTRODUCTION

It has been said that 'a revolution in cheesemaking as a result of ultrafiltration is

coming soon'. 1 This revolution has been in the making for the past 25 years and
has encompassed not only ultrafiltration but, more recently, microfiltration as
well. Indeed, more than 400000 tonnes of cheese were made using ultrafiltration
technology in 1989.2 The history of cheesemaking using membranes commenced
in the late 1960s with the invention of the MMV process?-5 This process, named
after its inventors (Maubois, Macquot and Vassel) opened up new avenues for
significant advances in cheesemaking, including improvements in plant efficiencies,
increases in cheese yield, development of continuous process, and possibilities of
creating new cheese varieties. As a result, numerous plants all over the world, but
mainly Europe, now use this process to manufacture a wide range of cheeses. 6
Since the introduction of the MMV process, commercial applications of mem-
branes in the cheese industry as well as research efforts aimed at developing new
applications and understanditig and improving current applications have ex-
panded all over the world. It was reported, for instance,1 that during the period
1979-1983, a total of 213 scientific papers were published dealing with mem-
brane separations in food processing. Of these, publications dealing with cheese
formed the largest category at 25%. Publications dealing with cheese and whey
combined represented 50% of the total. In a more recent literature search, it was

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P. F. Fox (ed.), Cheese: Chemistry, Physics and Microbiology
© Chapman & Hall 1993
494 V.V. MISTRY AND J.-L. MAUBOIS

found that more than 1000 publications on the application of membranes in

food processing appeared between 1984 and 1990. These data clearly illustrate
the magnitude of effort that has been invested in developing and understanding
applications of membranes in the food industry.
Since 1969, cheese-related applications of membranes have expanded into
numerous areas, including the manufacture of fresh, soft, semi-hard and hard
cheeses from milks of cows, goats, ewes, and water buffaloes; production of milk
powders with good cheesemaking properties;8 restoration of the rennet coagu-
lation properties of UHT treated milk; 9, 10 on-farm concentration of milk;11 re-
moval of bacteria from cheese milk by microfiltration 12 and casein enrichment of
cheese milk by microfiltration. 13 These developments were catalysed by improve-
ments in membrane components such as the development of mineral and ceramic
membranes; by studies on physico-chemical equilibria of UF retentates; by char-
acterization of the rheological behaviour of protein-enriched milks; by studies
on the growth and activity of cheese starters in liquid pre-cheeses and in the
resulting cheeses; and more importantly by the generation of new ideas and the
acceptance of new cheesemaking concepts in laboratories and in cheese plants
around the world. In this chapter, cheesemaking using ultrafiltration, reverse
osmosis and microfiltration will be discussed as well as other cheese-related
applications using these processes. It would be appropriate first to define some
membrane terms and discuss in brief, membrane design and configuration.

2 MEMBRANE DESIGN AND CONFIGURATION

Membrane technology is a broad term that encompasses several molecular sepa-

ration processes. Each process requires its own specialized equipment and has its
own characteristics that make it suitable for some applications but not for others.
To date, two of the most commonly used membrane processes in the dairy
industry have been reverse osmosis and ultrafiltration. 14,15 Another process, micro-
filtration, has emerged in the dairy industry over the past few years and shows
tremendous potential for the future. 2,16 Yet another process, nanofiltration or
loose reverse osmosis, has recently been introduced to the dairy industry and is
now being used for whey processing in some cheese plants.17~19

2.1 Definitions

2.1.1 Ultrafiltration (UF)

Ultrafiltration is a process which selectively separates macromolecules having
molecular weights of 1000 to 200000 daltons (Fig. 1) from solvent and dissolved
solutes. With cross-flow over a membrane surface at relatively low pressures
(less than 1000 kPa), UF produces from milk a permeate (also called ultrafiltrate)
containing water, lactose, soluble minerals, non-protein nitrogen and water-soluble
vitamins and a retentate in which proteins, fat and colloidal salts content
increase in proportion to the amount of permeate removed.3,4,14