Ceramic membrane crossflow technology was chosen for food and feed ingredients, state of the art facility for its ability to reliably deliver the highest filtrate quality regardless of broth characteristics. Unlike centrifugation, where cell size and density as well as fluid viscosity influence the separation efficiency, membrane separation offers an absolute physical barrier that will always provide the optimum separation.

Additionally, ceramic technology provided a solution which could operate without incurring the storage, handling and waste typical of filter aid-based precoat technology. An additional advantage of this solution is the ability to further use the product retentate stream, for example by drying it for use as animal feed.

Large diameter membrane channels were selected to handle the high feed spin solids. This resulted in the highest possible VCF and a retentate concentration in excess of 45 %. To further maximize recovery, diafiltration was used and resulted in an additional increase in the final yield of over 25 %.