by

The production of serum protein (SP) and micellar casein (CN) from skim milk can be accomplished using microfiltration (MF). There are potential commercial applications for both the SP and micellar CN. Our 1 st objective was to demonstrate the impact of: skim milk composition, heat treatment of skim milk, concentration factor (CF) and diafiltration factor (DF), control of CF and DF, and SP rejection of membrane on the performance of a MF system designed to process skim milk and separate CN from SP. A mathematical model of a skim milk MF process was developed and used to predict the effect of the 5 factors on retentate and permeate composition, SP removal, and micellar CN concentrate (MCC) and milk SP isolate (MSPI) yield for a 3 stage process. When skim milk TP increased from 3.2 to 3.8%, the yield of MCC and MSPI increased by 19 % and 18%, respectively. Increased heat treatment (72.9 to 85.