Investigation of Separation of Lactose from Whey Solution by Nanofiltration Process

Whey is the liquid residue of cheese production and contains large amount of organic matter, mainly protein and lactose. Direct discharge of whey means nutrition waste and environmental pollution. How to utilization of lactose is key point for whey preparation by membrane technology. Recently, the nanofiltration technology has great applications in food industry field. In this study, nanofiltration technology has been developed for separation of lactose from whey solution. Two kinds of model feed, the lactose solution and the whey solution, were investigated in order to compare the characterization of NF membranes performance. The effects of operation parameters such as trans-membrane pressure, temperature and feed pH were observed. In addition, a preferable cleaning method was proposed and the cleaning results were investigated