Use of computational fluid dynamics in the manufacture process of whey protein products

Abstract

Whey proteins are well known for combining high nutritional value with specific functional properties. In general, they are commercialized as concentrates and isolates that can be different in their functional properties due to variances in milk composition as well as in manufacturing conditions used to obtain those products. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is one of the most important technique used to solve the transport phenomena balances. The main advantage of this method is the possibility to obtain a high detailed description of the fluid system without using expensive experimental measurements. CFD is widely used in food science and engineering to study heat and mass transfer, phase change, solid and fluid interactions, and chemical reactions in food processing. As a consequence, the application of CFD to simulate the transport phenomena in several food processing steps (for instance heat treatments, membrane filtration, evaporation, and spray-drying) was documented in literature. For this reason, this chapter is a brief review about the use of CFD as a tool for simulating and optimizing the Industrial manufacture of whey protein products, such as concentrates and isolates.