Membrane and Environmental Engineers

Serving Australia and New Zealand for the past 15 years

Sanitary Membrane Plants

sanitary membrane plants Membrane processing is our number one activity. With 40 plants processing over 20 million litres per day of various feed streams, we like to think we can help with most applications.

Our membrane plants are designed in-house, so we have the skills to troubleshoot or advise on plant expansions right here. No need to wait for responses from Europe or USA.

Our experience is primarily in the Dairy industry, but there are potential applications right across the food and beverage industry. Whenever there is a need to separate components (such as fats, bacteria, proteins, sugars, salt and water) membrane processing could be the answer.

Please browse through the possibilities below. We have plants already operating on most of these applications (refer examples), so contact us for further information.

Summary of Activities:

Membrane Plants	Engineering
Ultrafiltration >>	Engineering Services >>
Nanofiltration >>	Plant Expansion
Reverse Osmosis >>	Troubleshooting
Microfiltration >>	Automation retro-fit
Pilot Plants >>	Replacement membranes
Membrane Replacement >>	Plant Upgrades
Examples >>	Training

Ultrafiltration

Need to recover or purify a protein stream? Consider some of these applications: whey protein isolates (WPI90); milk protein concentrates (40 – 85% MPC); whey protein concentrates; skim milk or wholemilk concentration for cheesemilk; skim UF for speciality milk products; brine recovery; blood protein isolation; beer and juice clarification.

Nanofiltration

Nanofiltration can be the perfect answer if you need to demineralise product streams, with examples such as: sweet whey concentration and demineralisation; NF for speciality milk products; salty whey yield recovery; acid whey demineralisation; adding value to waste juice, beer or wine streams; UF permeate concentration; caustic clean-up.

Reverse Osmosis

reverse osmosis RO is primarily a concentrating step and is generally recognised as more energy efficient and cost effective than evaporation, as well as avoiding the heat damage of evaporation. The other main application is the production of re-usable water streams. Examples include: whey concentration pre-evaporation; RO of milk for transport savings; UF permeate concentration; concentrating dilute waste sugar, juice, beer or wine streams; evaporator condensate clean-up; NF permeate re-use.

Microfiltration

Microfiltration is the least used of the membrane processes in food and dairy applications, mainly due its tendency to foul and be difficult to run continuously. We have used MF for the cleaning up of brines because it does reject fat and bacteria very well – thus leaving clean brine for re-use. MF is far more useful in water applications due to its high flux performance on clean streams.

Pilot Plants

We have portable pilot plant equipment available for on-site testing of membrane applications. For longer term trials, we can of course custom design and build a pilot plant for your specific application.

Membrane Engineering Services

Because we design our plants from first principle right here, we have the in-house capability to assist with all manner of enquiries about existing membrane plants. The most common services we get involved with are:

Troubleshooting – responding to those urgent plant performance problems. Often just a phone discussion can start the recovery process.
Capacity upgrades of existing plants. Most of these have not even been EPI plants originally.
Change of plant duty - perhaps a new product feed or a new finished product specification.
Automation of plants – older plants can be made more reliable by retrofitting automatic control
Plant audits – a “health” check up covering all sorts of areas including equipment issues, plant optimisation, maintenance issues, operating procedures, membrane performance.
Training – Our operator training courses are geared to practical application. Membrane theory is covered of course, but we then concentrate on the actual plant the operator works with – identifying the key components, discussing the way they can run the plant better and giving them some skills to better handle those crisis situations.

Membrane Replacement

We have excellent working relationships with numerous membrane suppliers, so can offer a wide range of replacement membranes.

EXAMPLES - MEMBRANE PROJECTS

Listed below is a selection of membrane plants that EPI has designed and manufactured.

PLANT TYPE	CAPACITY	APPLICATION
NF	75,000 l/hr	Sweet whey concentration and Ash reduction. Includes diafiltration.
RO	60,000 l/hr	Clean-up NF permeate suitable for re-use.
RO	60,000 l/hr x 3	Clean-up evaporator condensate for re-use.
NF (special)	20,000 l/day	Clean-up evaporator caustic for re-use.
UF	40,000 l/hr	MPC80 manufacture. Plant also capable of variable flowrate and manufacture of MPC40 to MPC70.
NF	50,000 l/hr	Acid Casein whey concentration and demineralisation.
NF	60,000 l/hr	Caseinate whey concentration and demineralisation.
UF	20,000 l/hr	Acid whey NF permeate processed to WPC35-50.
UF	7,000 l/hr	Whey protein isolate (WPI90) concentration and demineralisation.
MF	15,000 l/hr	Clean up and microbial reduction of mozzarella and gouda brine.
NF	60,000 l/day	Demineralisation and solids recovery from cheeseroom salty whey.
RO	50,000 l/hr	Concentration of milk UF permeate.
RO	30,000 l/hr	Whey concentration.
UF	10,000 l/hr	Milk concentration to increase protein and calcium levels.
UF	50,000 l/hr	Milk concentration.
NF	10,000 l/hr	Milk concentration to increase protein and calcium levels.
RO	40,000 l/hr	Skim concentration for evaporator feed.
UF	50,000 l/hr	Manufacture WPC35 from sweet whey.
NF	40,000 l/hr	Concentrate and demineralise sweet whey UF permeate.
RO/NF/UF/MF	Pilot Plant	Multipurpose plant for trial purposes.
Various	N/A	Expansion, improvement, automation etc of other supplier’s plants such as APV, Koch, Niro.

ENVIRONMENT PRODUCTS INTERNATIONAL LIMITED - total solutions to processing, water recycling and effluent problems