Researchers at the Wisconsin Center for Dairy Research (WCDR) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, have recently developed a process concept known as "whey refinery" to manufacture as many as five different purified whey proteins rather than just one, as is currently the practice.
With the whey refinery method, protein from the incoming crude whey stream is captured all at once onto an ion exchanger and washed free of lactose, minerals and fat. Removing non-essential ingredients and reducing the volume of solutions to be processed downstream increases throughput, capacity and the selectivity of downstream separation processes, thereby reducing costs.