Method and plant for treating milk
AssigneeAPV Pasilac A/S
InventorsOrla Nissen, Erik Krabsen, Niels Klasusen Ottosen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A plant and method of treating low-fat milk, such as skim milk, so as to obtain with a low content of spores and bacteria, wherein the milk is subject to a first microfiltration causing a separation into a first permeate, the first permeate being subjected to an additional microfiltration. This double microfiltration ensures that the acceptable limits for bacterial counts in milk products are not exceeded in case of a membrane breakdown.
Claims13
A plant for treating low-fat milk, to obtain a reduced content of spores and bacteria and a substantially unchanged content of milk proteins, said plant comprising:
- b) a feed conduit for milk coupled to
- b1) a microfiltration unit (MF) for separating the milk into a spore- and bacteria-containing retentate and a permeate with a lower content of spores and bacteria, said MF unit being coupled to
- b1a) a conduit for the retentate and
- b1b) a conduit for the permeate respectively,
- characterised in that after the microfiltration unit, the permeate conduit is coupled to
- e) a second microfiltration unit for separating the first permeate into a second retentate and a second permeate said second microfiltration unit being coupled to
- e1) a conduit for the second retentate in the form of a recirculation conduit to the first microfiltration unit and to
- e2) a conduit for the second permeate respectively.
A plant according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that the first microfiltration unit and the second microfiltration unit have substantially the same pore size.
A plant according to any one of the preceding claims further comprising one or more membrane units, the first and the second membrane units being coupled in series, and in which the permeate conduit from the second membrane unit is coupled to a third membrane filtration unit, the permeate conduit thereof optionally being coupled to one or several subsequent membrane filtration units, in which each permeate conduit apart from a last membrane filtration unit, is coupled to the subsequent membrane filtration unit as a feed conduit and in which at least one retentate conduit is a recirculation conduit for feeding to a preceding membrane filtration unit.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.