Milk Protein Concentrates (MPC) with Enhanced Functionalities Produced using Membrane Ultrafiltration

Milk protein concentrate (MPC) has become an important raw material for many applications, including processed cheese, ice cream, yoghurt, fermented dairy and meal replacement beverages. Various processing conditions during MPC production affect their physical functionalities. Quantitative knowledge about the relationship between production conditions and functional properties is limited, especially for the production of MPC using membrane technology.\ud Understanding this relationship will lead to the establishment of design rules of manufacturing practices for production of MPC with enhanced functionalities. The purpose of this study is to understand how temperature, pH and calcium (Ca) chelators affect the ultra-filtration (UF) process and the functionalities of the MPC. Three major experiments were conducted: i) effect of operation temperature (i.e. 15, 30 and 50 ˚C), ii) effect of the pH of skim milk (i.e. pH 6.7, 6.3, 5.9 and 5.5), and iii) the effect of Ca chelators (EDTA and citrate, at levels of 10, 20 and 30 mM) on the UF operation and the functionalities of the MPC obtained. Raw milk was first used to investigate the effect of temperature, pH and Ca chelators, individually or in combination, on milk at its native state, avoiding the possibilities of the milk protein and minerals being disrupted by any industrial process, then commercial skim milk was selected and used for MPC production and functionality tests