IDF President Piercristiano Brazzale (left) und Christian Zscherpe (Hochschule Hannover) Photo: VDM
At the IDF World Dairy Summit 2023 in Chicago (USA) this week, Hannover University of Applied Sciences and Arts (Germany) was awarded the IDF Dairy Innovation Award in the category “Sustainable Processing” for the project “Development of a RO-NF-UF membrane cascade to concentrate skim milk to a dry matter of >48%”. The innovative membrane filtration cascade consisting of reverse osmosis, nanofiltration and ultrafiltration makes it possible to concentrate skim milk to a dry matter of >48% without evaporation. Compared to evaporation processes, the membrane cascade developed is fully electrified, which offers the potential to reduce the CO2 balance.
The process development as well as the techno-economic and ecological analyses were carried out within the framework of two research projects funded by the German Federal Environmental Foundation (DBU) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The companies involved in the projects were frischli Milchwerke GmbH, GEA TDS GmbH, Molkerei Ammerland eG and Rücker GmbH.
The research projects were carried out by the Milk Technology working group under the direction of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Saskia Schwermann. The prize was accepted by research assistant and doctoral student Christian Zscherpe.
