Cheese Whey as a Source of Lactose and Lactose Derivatives

**Chapter 3**

**Abstract**

ultrafiltration

**23**

**1. Introduction**

management/utilization [1].

Membrane Applications for

*Elizabeth da Costa Neves Fernandes de Almeida Duarte*

Cheese whey, the co-product from cheese making processes, is a natural and cheap source of high value compounds, mainly proteins, small peptides, oligosaccharides, lactose, and minerals. Lactose is the main component (about 90%) of the dry extract of cheese whey. This carbohydrate has plenty of application in the food and pharmaceutical industries due to its relative low sweetening power, caloric value, and glycemic index. Besides, lactose is currently available for diverse physicochemical properties, namely particle size, bulk density, distribution, and flow characteristics, extending its use for a larger range of applications. Recovery of lactose from cheese whey can be carried out through different processes, such as membrane processes, crystallization, anti-solvent crystallization, and sonocrystallization. This chapter aims to furnish a deep insight into the performance of

**Keywords:** cheese whey, lactose recovery, membrane processes, nanofiltration,

Dairy industry is one of the major food processing industries in the world, manufacturing a broad range of different products. Therefore, it generates large amounts of by-products during the processing of milk and manufacture of dairy

Cheese whey is the most abundant co-product in the cheese-making and casein industries. It contains about 65 g L<sup>1</sup> of dry matter, being lactose the main component (70–80%), proteins (9%), corresponding to 20% of all milk proteins, and minerals (8–20%) and, to a much lesser extent, hydrolyzed peptides from casein-k, lipids, and bacteria, which resulted from cheese manufacturing [2, 3]. Generally, for each 100 kg of milk, around 10–20 kg of cheese is manufactured, and 80–90 kg of liquid whey is released [4]. According to Food and Agriculture Organization Corporate Statistical Database (FAOSTAT), more than 114 million tons of whey were produced worldwide in 2013, with Europe producing 63 million tons in that

products (e.g., cheese, butter, and yogurts), leading to problems of their

membrane processes for lactose recovery from cheese whey.

Lactose Recovering

*Joana Filipa Oliveira Monteiro,*

*and Carlos Dias Pereira*

*Antónia Teresa Zorro Nobre Macedo,*

*David José Chaveiro da Silva Azedo,*
