Abstract
Nanofiltration (NF) membranes, for which simultaneous concentration and desalination occur, fill the gap between RO and UF. The food industry understood the advantages of this technology at an early stage and started to use NF from 1984 onward as a production process for desalted lactose-containing whey powders. This resulted in a rapid growth of the NF membrane surface area installed in the food industry to around 300 000 m 2 in 2001. In this chapter, major food industry applications such as the concentration and demineralization of whey and UF whey permeate and the purification of dextrose syrup are described. Moreover, considerable research and development for application of other potentially attractive NF processes has resulted in the successful implementation of NF in other food sectors such as the edible oil industry, the recovery of food ingredients and nutraceuticals from food wastes, and the manufacture of alternative sweeteners. In the near future, the use of NF for filtration and the reuse of the spent process with water permeates and condensates are interesting developments. These successful implementations and interesting developments will also be discussed in this chapter.