Reliable total solids control for plant protein extraction

Nowadays there are two main ways to extract the protein out:

■ Dry Extraction
■ Wet Extraction

These two methods have their advantages and disadvantages, but each extraction method serves a different industrial purpose.
This application focuses mainly on the wet extraction. One of the major factors of the wet extraction is to produce high purity protein ranging from 85% – 92%. This purity is mostly required in the dairy, meat supplement and beverage industry. The extraction process starts with the preparation of the beans, solubilization, centrifugation or decantation, precipitation, washing and finally drying the extracted protein.

For this application the microwave technology is used specially in the decantation/separation, where the dry matter content of the protein mixture is measured and
monitored for optimal separation ratios. The optimal separation/decantation values of the protein mixture depend on the manufacturer‘s specifications, however between 24 - 26 %DM is a good reference. To be able to constantly operate the optimal separation/decantation a reliable online measurement is needed. With the Micro-Polar LB 566 measurement system from Berthold it is possible to measure the total solids with high repeatability and accuracy, thus guaranteeing stable and reliable process control throughout the entire extraction process.

Technical Features

  • Multi-frequency technology for dynamic plausibility control of the raw signal
  • Representative microwave measurement captures the entire pipeline cross section
  • CIP and SIP resistant materials
  • Low-wear and maintenance-free

 

Customer Benefits

  • Online total solids or density measurement
  • Optimisation & control of the production process
  • Cost reduction through optimised use of resources
  • Optimised pump utilisation avoids blockages and ensures optimum efficiency
  • Non-optical measurement, not sensitive to contamination therefore no cleaning required
  • Not sensitive to film build-up

 

 

Berthold Labels

Food safety through international quality standards

FDA
EHEDG
3A

Measuring principle

The MicroPolar measuring system uses the special dielectric property of water. It generates microwaves that interact predominantly with the water molecules.
This interaction induces a weakening of the microwave energy, which can be detected as phase shift and attenuation. As the phase shift and attenuation change
is directly proportional to the water content, this allows the determination of the concentration of the medium with high accuracy. Berthold‘s superior multi-frequency technology guarantees highly stable and reliable measurements that are unaf-fected by interferences caused by reflections or resonances. The microwave power of a MicroPolar system is so low (max. 10 mW) that the material to be measured is neither heated nor changed in any way.

Typical applications where plant-based protein is used

  • Plant-based meat (burgers, sausages, nuggets)
  • Dairy alternatives (yogurts, cheese analogues)
  • Nutrition (protein powders, meal replacements)
  • Bakery (protein breads, snacks)

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