Equipment overview
The Milk Processing Lab was designed to be highly flexible by having all of the equipment on wheels. All of our instruments are dairy grade and consume minimal amounts of energy and water. Our equipment reaches steady-state quickly and produces little waste.
All Microthermics equipment at the MPL is certified by Nationally Recognized Testing Laboratory (NRTL). NRTL is an organization that OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) has recognized as meeting the legal requirements in 29 CFR 1910.7. In brief, these requirements specify the capability, control programs, complete independence, and reporting and complaint handling procedures to test and certify specific types of products for workplace safety. We, therefore, have the necessary capabilities of both a product safety testing laboratory and a product certification body as required to receive OSHA recognition as an NRTL.
Systems
Raw milk processing system
- Equipment
- Raw milk, skim, and cream receiving tanks
- Milk pump
- Heat exchanger
- Separator
- Separates whole milk into skim and cream fractions
- Processes 100 gallons of milk per hour
- Recovers heat added to milk for separation
- Maintains holding temperature of raw milk, skim milk, and cream at 5°C
Heat processing system
- Equipment:
- Pasteurization/UHT unit
- Homogenizer
- Ultra-clean filler unit
- Pilot plant scale processing sequence to pasteurize, homogenize, and package milk, skim, and cream
- Can perform HTST or UHT pasteurization
- CIP cleanable
Compound isolation and purification
- Equipment
- Milk separator
- Membrane filtration system
- Desalination unit
- Separates bioactive compounds from dairy streams to the micro-, ultra-, nano-, and reverse osmosis purities
Equipment
Receiving tanks
- 2 stainless steel tanks with 100 gallon capacity
- 1 stainless steel tank with 25 gallon capacity
- Provides agitation
- Jacketed with chilled water to keep milk at 5°C
- Tank jackets can be heated by coupling with our powerful heat exchanger
- Used as receiving tanks for dairy products, in milk processing, and in enzymatic reactions such as casein precipitation and lactose hydrolysis
- Manufacturer: Sprinkman Corp.
Water Circulating Temperature Heat Transfer System
- Heats or cools water to be used with jacketed receiving tanks or heat exchanger
- Heats water up to 250 °F
- Open or closed-loop cooling
- Manufacturer: Chromalox
Heat Exchanger
- Utilizes a 3-section sanitary design
- Section 1: pre-heats cold raw milk with heat released from cooling milk in section 3
- Section 2: Heats raw milk with hot water
- Section 3: Cools skim milk to be held at 5°C until processing
- Ideal for heating milk prior to separating skim from cream
- Manufacturer: TetraPak
Milk Separator
- Separates raw milk into skim and cream fractions
- 100 gallon per hour capacity
- Typically operated at 3.3 L per min
- Best performance with milk between 21-57 °C
- ≤0.1% skim efficiency
- 10-40% milkfat cream
- Manufacturer: GEA Westfalia
Pasteurizer/UHT unit
- Can perform HTST and UHT pasteurization on milk, skim, or cream
- Typically operated at 2 L per min
- Pilot plant scale
- CIP cleanable
- Manufacturer: Microthermics
Homogenizer
- Utilizes 2 homogenizing stages to maximize homogenization
- Variable speed motor to match the flow of the pasteurizer/UHT unit
- Sterilizable by pasteurizer/UHT unit
- CIP cleanable
- Manufacturer: GEA Niro Soavi
Filler with automatic fill control
- Packages product appropriately for research studies including
- Refrigerated shelf-life studies
- Product-package interaction studies
- Sensory panels
- Clinical trials
- Capable of aseptic filling
- Ultra-clean filling environment
- Filler hood has a shower of HEPA filtered sterile air
- Room is HEPA filtered
- CIP cleanable
Membrane filtration system
- Capable of micro-, ultra-, and nano-filtration and reverse osmosis to isolate milk components
- Critical step in separating bioactive compounds from milk
- Highly versatile
- Module for simultaneously screening several flat-sheet membranes
- Module for using up to 3 larger spiral membranes
- Available in both pilot plant and bench scales
- Manufacturers: GEA Process Engineering (pilot plant scale), Smartflow technologies (bench-scale)
High-Performance Desalination unit
- Fully automated
- Ion exchange membranes
- MiniCell test strand
- 10 cell pairs
- Purifies target compounds following membrane filtration
- Manufacturers: Fuji Film, Magna Imperio Systems Corp.
Fermenters
- Custom-designed stainless-steel fermenters
- Frequently used for lactose and monosaccharide fermentation
- Manufacturer: Cypress Semiconductor
If you are interested in working with us, please contact Bruna Paviani for more information: bpaviani@ucdavis.edu.