Australian scientists have demonstrated cream separation from natural whole milk at litre-scales for the first time using ultrasonic standing waves.
Ultrasonic standing waves is a novel, fast and non-destructive separation technique typically used only in small-scale settings.
The scientists, from Swinburne University of Technology and CSIRO, demonstrated its larger scale use at the 169th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) last month.
The researchers also reported the key design and effective operating parameters for milk fat separation in batch and continuous systems.
The project, co-funded by the Geoffrey-Gardiner Dairy Foundation and the Australian Research Council, has established a proven ultrasound technique to separate fat globules from milk with high volume throughputs up to 30 litres per hour, opening doors for processing dairy and biomedical particulates on an industrial scale.
"We have successfully established operating conditions and design limitations for the separation of fat from natural whole milk in an ultrasonic litre-scale system," said Thomas Leong, an ultrasound engineer and a post-doctoral researcher from the Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology at the Swinburne University of Technology.
"By tuning system parameters according to acoustic fundamentals, the technique can be used to specifically select milk fat globules of different sizes in the collected fractions, achieving fractionation outcomes desired for a particular dairy product."
