Whey liquid is a dairy waste by-product produced during the cheese production process. There has been an increased interest in beneficiating this whey and whey products as functional ingredients in food and as nutrients in dietetic and health foods.

The main challenge in whey protein extraction is that it needs to be purified through several expensive extraction unit operations requiring either high heating or highly acidic pre-treatments to initiate precipitation. To shift focus towards innovative techniques, this study investigates the applicability of using a Beckman centrifuge and a vacuum filtration system for highly efficient separation of valuable proteins from whey. Thus, the two process parameters, process time and separation mass yield were investigated.