Investigation of Time Dependency of Resistances in Cross-flow Microfiltration of Whey

Whey microfiltration is used as the best pretreatment for ultrafiltration of whey to produce whey protein concentrate (WPC). A microfiltration set-up with flat module and PESmembrane with 0.45 μm pore size was used. In this study, the amounts and percentage of all existed resistances were obtainedduring operation times at 4, 10, 20, and 40 min. The results showed the main effect of reversible fouling for all period of times. In addition, the sudden raise of reversible fouling after 10min of operation was observed. Also, analyze of protein in permeate was done to obtain rejection. We achieved almost complete membrane regeneration in most experiments by chemical cleaning