REVIEW PAPER Ultrafiltration in Food Processing Industry: Review on Application, Membrane Fouling, and Fouling Control Abdul Wahab Mohammad & Ching Yin Ng & Ying Pei Lim & Gen Hong Ng Received: 1 August 2011 / Accepted: 8 February 2012 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012 Abstract Ultrafiltration process has been applied widely in food processing industry for the last 20 years due to its advantages over conventional separation processes such as gentle product treatment, high selectivity, and lower energy consumption. Ultrafiltration becomes an essential part in food technology as a tool for separation and concentration. How- ever, membrane fouling compromises the benefits of ultrafil- tration as fouling significantly reduces the performance and hence increases the cost of ultrafiltration. Recent advances in this area show the various intensive studies carried out to improve ultrafiltration, focusing on membrane fouling control and cleaning of fouled membranes. Thus, this paper reviews recent developments in ultrafiltration process, focusing on fouling mechanisms of ultrafiltration membranes as well as the latest techniques used to counter membrane fouling. Keywords Ultrafiltration . Membrane technology . Fouling control . Food processing industry Introduction Membrane filtration processes have gained popularity in the food processing industry over the last 25 years. It is esti- mated that 20–30% of the current €250 million turnover of membrane used in the manufacturing industry worldwide was from food processing industry. To date, this market is still undergoing rapid growth, approximately 7.5% per year, particularly in dairy industry, followed by beverages and egg products. The total membrane market for the food and beverages industry has been estimated to be worth US $1,182 billion in 2008 (Sutherland 2004). In the dairy in- dustry, it is estimated that over 75% of membrane usage is dedicated to whey processing, while 25% of ultrafiltration (UF) membranes is accounted for milk processing (Eykamp 1995; Timmer and Van der Horst 1998). Compared to conventional competitive concentration (thermal processes) and separation operations (decantation, filtration, centrifugation, chromatography, etc.), membrane separation processes are of great interest and attractive to industry due to three main benefit categories as follows (Daufin et al. 2001; Lim and Mohammad 2011): (a) Higher quality of process food—Customer requirements for food have evolved with safety + novelty + diversity + nutrition. This evolution necessitates the design of novel foods and intermediate food products by manufacturing fractions and co-fractions from initial products. More- over, membrane separation process could preserve the nutrition of fresh food with lower risk of contamination. (b) Competitiveness and economical consideration—In prep- aration of traditional food products, membrane processes contribute to simplification of process flow (reduce some production steps) and improvement of production pro- cesses (removes unwanted ingredients like food contam- inants that have a negative impact on product quality, making the final product more attractive in texture and increasing its shelf-life) and food quality (mild tempera- ture operation with non-destructive for thermally labile foods and flavors). Moreover, membrane processes are simple, easy to implement, and modular systems in nature (which are compact yet have great flexibility with good automation). A. W. Mohammad (*) : C. Y. Ng : Y. P. Lim : G. H. Ng Department of Chemical and Process Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, 43600 Bangi, Selangor, Malaysia e-mail: drawm67@gmail.com A. W. Mohammad e-mail: wahabm@eng.ukm.my Food Bioprocess Technol DOI 10.1007/s11947-012-0806-9