Toward an integrated modeling of the dairy product transformations, a review of the existing mathematical models

Abstract The large diversity of dairy products is the consequence of complex processes involving series of unit operations with a wide range of controls that makes the complete modeling awkward. Due to the variety of milk components and process conditions, a generic model describing the milk processing can only be achieved by the integration of various models into a generic modeling framework. Moreover, the building of such an approach involves the coupling of transformation models describing each unit operation. In this scope, the present work aims to review existing mathematical models of the dairy products processing with a special focus on some main process units: thermal treatment, homogenization and coagulation. For each unit operation, several transformation models are investigated according to their complexities, relevance to depict actual phenomena and ability to be integrated with others models to represent complex transformations. As a first step for the integration of models, a focus on their input parameters and predicted variables is achieved.