Milk protein fractionation by spiral-wound membranes - Optimization of process and module design

In this thesis, novel methods of investigating and mitigating deposit formation in spiral-wound membranes (SWM) were developed to optimize their filtration performance applying flux and protein permeation as optimization criteria. New technical concepts and process designs were generated to achieve uniform performance and reduced deposit formation along the flow path from module inlet to outlet. Thus, an optimized industrial process for the fractionation of skim milk could be developed, which can also be adapted to other filtration tasks.