Thanks to concerted efforts, soy whey protein enrichment and purification technology and associated commercial applications, a key project initiated by the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology for agrifoods deep processing, has achieved substantial progresses. 

Taking advantage of the features of waste soy whey water, the research team developed an innovative oscillation membrane filter that can retrieve whey protein from waste soy whey water. The new system is of strong resistance to contamination. A trial production at a daily capacity of 100 tons of waste whey water shows that the new system offers a contamination resistance several dozen times that of regular membrane filters. The new system can work for 24 hours on a consecutive basis, needing only one hour for cleaning. Resistant to highly contaminated fluids, the system can be used to separate the solids with a concentration up to 2.0%.

In the case treating whey water with COD at 12000mg/L, the super filter is able to reduce COD content to 4000 mg/L. Further treatment brings down COD to 100 mg/L or lower, reaching the standard for direct discharge. The system extracts 70% of protein and 10% of dust from soy whey protein.