Hasmukh Patel
Senior Principal Scientist
Land O'Lakes, Inc.

Hasmukh Patel recently joined Land O’ Lakes as Senior Principal Scientist, Dairy Foods R&D. Dr. Patel nearly 20 years of valuable experience working in dairy industry and CPG companies as well as in Academia. Most recently, he served as faculty at Dairy Science Department, South Dakota State University, USA between June 2012 and July 2015, where he had very successful research program on “Structure-function relationship of milk proteins and design of dairy ingredients with tailored functionality, improved nutrition and health benefit”. Before joining SDSU in 2012, he spent 11 years at Fonterra Research and Development Centre, New Zealand and conducted ground-breaking research and led many projects in the areas developing value-added ingredients such as WPC, WPI, MPC. He has made significant contributions in the area of application of new technologies in dairy industry for functional and nutritional benefit of dairy ingredients and the effect of processing on protein-protein interactions and functional properties of dairy ingredients in various food systems including yoghurt, cheese, emulsions, powders and milk protein fortified beverages such as sports and nutrition beverages. Dr. Patel is a co-inventor of 6 patents and has more than 60 scholarly publications including several peer-reviewed papers in reputed journals, book chapters and several invited keynote addresses at the international conferences. He is also a recipient of several awards including Dr. Sherwood and Elizabeth Berg Faculty Award 2015 at SDSU and prestigious American Dairy Science Association Foundation Scholar Award 2013 and recognizing his world-class research and teaching in the area of Dairy Foods.

Membrane Concentration and Frequently Asked Questions in Plant and Pilot Plant

When conducting ingredient concentration, conventional thermal processes, such as evaporation, may have a severe impact on functional and nutritional properties of the final products due to the heat-treatment. Membrane process, which is a non-thermal process and mainly uses pressure as driving force, has been extensively investigated as an alternative process for ingredient concentration. Comparing to evaporation, membrane concentration has advantages including less energy consumption and convenience for scaling up. However, there is a limitation for the maximum concentration once the osmotic pressure of the concentrate is close to the operation pressure. In this case, some membrane processes have been developed for further concentration using advanced technologies.

This presentation illustrates several conventional membrane concentration processes, UF, NF and RO, and also introduces two other advanced membrane processes, Pervaporation and Forward Osmosis. At the end of the presentation, some frequently asked questions in plant and pilot plant, such as “What is the difference between Membrane pore size vs. MWCO”, are interpreted based on fundamental knowledge of membrane.