Whey Demineralisation Case Study (Retrofit)

A whey processor in Europe with an existing whey demineralisation facility capable of processing 720 tonnes of fresh whey at 6% solids per day built by a leading European dairy OEM approached Separation Technologies with a specific problem – mineral specification not meeting customer requirements.

Introducing our changes in the choice of resins, process operation and engineering design to two of the existing plants, (the third was no longer required) led to the following benefits:

• An average saving of 125€ per tonne of demineralised whey powder produced.
• 350% increase in production capacity of each plant with improved mineral specification precisely meeting the customer requirement.
• 66% reduction in cycle time.
• 50% reduction in caustic usage per tonne of whey processed.
• 25% reduction in acid usage per tonne of whey processed.
• 50% reduction in water usage per tonne of whey processed.
• 48% reduction in total effluent volume per tonne whey processed.
• Reduced dilution of the product, i.e., precise sweeten-on and sweeten-off phases and thereby a reduction in cost of evaporation.
• On the finished product, 100% of runs met targeted mineral specification, irrespective of variations in solids content from 5 to 10%, reproducibility of pH accuracy in finished product and reduced loss of proteins.

The facility has now enjoyed trouble free operation since 1998, capable of processing 1.5 million litres of whey per day at 6% solids with approximately 10,000 litres each of cation and anion resin per plant.