Process and Products Innovation in Dairy Industry by Using Dense Carbon Dioxide

The most important products of the dairy industry are: pasteurized liquid milk, casein and products derived by casein, and whey protein concentrates. Among the different advanced processes developed for getting better quality products in comparison to those obtained with traditional technologies, the processes based on the use of dense carbon dioxide are preferable from many points of view. In particular: a) high quality extended shelf life liquid milk, pasteurized at the body temperature of the animal, can be obtained using a continuous process which is simpler and less expensive in comparison to competitive non-thermal pasteurization process based on membrane filtration; b) casein can be separated without adding any kind of contaminating biochemical substances to the milk and, consequently, preserving or improving the quality of the milk whey; c) whey proteins can be precipitated as native proteins which can be further processed to produce serum protein concentrate having significantly better nutritional, organoleptic and functional properties in comparison to the traditional whey protein concentrate. In this contribution, the above mentioned dense carbon dioxide processes will be described in some details along with the indication of the optimal operating conditions and the improved quality of the products.