Membrane processes have become major tools in food processing for more than 25 years. The food industry represents a significant part of the turnover of the membrane manufacturing industry worldwide. The main applications of membrane operations are in the dairy industry (whey protein concentration, milk protein standardization, etc.) far before beverages (wine, beer, fruit juices, etc.) and egg products. Among the very numerous applications on an industrial scale a few striking
particular separations which represent the last advances in food processing are reported. Clarification of fruit, vegetable and sugar juices by microfiltration or ultrafiltration allows the flow sheets to be simplified or the processes made cleaner and the final product quality improved. Enzymatic hydrolysis combined to selective ultrafiltration can produce beverages from vegetable proteins. In the beer industry, recovery of maturation and fermentation tank bottoms is already applied at industrial scale. During the last decade significant progress has been performed with microfiltration membrane in rough beer clarification which is the most important challenge of this technology. In the wine industry the cascade cross-flow microfiltration...
Keywords: food industry, milk, dairy, wine, beer, vegetable protein, beverage, waste stream, membrane process.