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How hygiene happens: physics and chemistry of cleaning
P J F RYER ,* G K C HR IS T IAN and W LIU
Centre for Formulation Engineering, Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15
2TT, UK

Cleaning is a commonplace but poorly understood operation in the dairy industries. This paper describes
recent work to identify and quantify the critical factors that control cleaning. Experiments have used
micromanipulation probes to remove deposits from surfaces; these probes can measure the force required
to remove deposits, and allow simple models of cleaning to be produced.
Keywords Cleaning, Engineering, Hygiene, Milk protein deposits.

anisms. Often there is a lag (induction) period,

I N T RO D U C T I O N
Fouling and cleaning in dairy processing
Fouling is the unwanted build-up of deposits on
a surface. This is a major problem in the dairy
industry, particularly during thermal treatment.
Build-up of deposit increases pressure drop, due to
the increase in surface roughness and the decrease
in cross-sectional area of the flow channels, and
reduces heat transfer efficiency. Increased costs are
therefore incurred. Fouling can also compromise
product quality by cross-contamination or microbial
growth. It is necessary to stop production to clean
the processing plant, often daily.
Fouling and its minimization have been inves-
tigated for many years (for detailed examples, see
the series of conferences including Fryer et al.
(1996) and Wilson et al. (1999; 2002), together
with the recent books by Lelieveld (2003) and
Lelieveld et al. (2005)). Milk is a complex fluid
with a number of thermally unstable components,
with equally complex fouling behaviour (Changani
et al. 1997). Two major types of deposits exist
(Burton 1968); the composition and appearance of
the two deposit types (type A and type B) are given
in Table 1. The protein content of type A deposit is
mainly β-lactoglobulin (β-lg, a whey protein); at
least 50% of the protein content of deposit formed
at 70–80 C is β-lg (Lalande et al. 1985; Tissier and
Lalande 1986), although it is only approximately
10% of the total protein in milk (Walstra and
Jenness 1984). In the native state this protein is a
dimer, above 50°C it dissociates, and between
60°C and 70°C the monomers unfold (i.e. denature).
Upon unfolding, β-lg-free sulphydry (-SH) groups
*Author for are exposed, which may irreversibly polymerize
correspondence. E-mail:
with disulphide bonds on other β-lg molecules
p.j.fryer@bham.ac.uk
(or with other proteins) (Roefs and de Kruif 1994).
© 2006 Society of Fouling from milk processing is thought due to a
Dairy Technology combination of number of different fouling mech-
during which no change in heat-transfer coefficient
of pressure drop occurs, before fouling commences.
Visser et al. (1997) proposed three fouling mech-
anisms for milk or whey protein solutions with milk
salts:
1 Denatured whey proteins aggregate and adhere
to the surface.
2 Inversely soluble calcium phosphate and calcium
citrate precipitate upon heating. Crystallization at
the surface can occur and form a mineral scale.
3 Inclusion of product fluid within the growing
fouling layers allows the formation of different
layers, which may have different compositions.
This mechanism is dependent on the process and
the product conditions.
Fouling is now reasonably well understood.
Early models (Fryer 1989) demonstrated how foul-
ing worked, and these models have been developed
into those that can be used predictively. De Jong
et al. (2002) describes the use of models based on
β-lg reaction kinetics to predict fouling, and this
type of model has been used by authors such as
Grijspeerdt et al. (2004) and Sahoo et al. (2005) to
study fouling. The simulations suggest that holding
times at intermediate temperatures reduce fouling
through reactions taking place in the bulk rather than
on the surface. This type of holding section has been
used empirically for many years; the models allow
rational selection of process times and conditions.
Understanding fouling helps in the understand-
ing of cleaning. There is considerable focus on
understanding how deposit is removed, and thus,
how to improve the efficiency of cleaning pro-
cesses. Three phases are involved in the removal of
milk soil: the heat transfer surface, the deposit and
the alkali cleaning solution. Any of the following
may be involved in cleaning of food deposits
(Plett 1985): melting, mechanical break-up, wetting,

76 Vol 59, No 2 May 2006 International Journal of Dairy Technology

Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
Table 1 Composition of deposits formed by milk at different temperatures. The balance of the percentage composition is
made up by other components such as carbohydrate (Burton, 1968)
Processing conditions Temperature
Type A Pasteurization Up to 100°C
Type B UHT 100–140°C
(ultra high
temperature)
swelling, desorption, emulsification, hydrolysation,
saponification and dispersion. Removal may be
governed by a combination of mass transfer,
diffusion and reaction (Bird and Fryer 1991), any
of which may be controlling.
Historically, process equipment was opened
and cleaned individually. Large-scale production
led to the need for Cleaning-in-Place (CIP) systems,
in which chemicals are circulated to remove the
deposit. Alternatively, surfaces can be subjected
to sprays or jets of the cleaning chemicals. These
processes are highly developed and automated,
but are rarely if ever optimized. Cleaning regimes
generally involve a number of cycles: 1 prerinse —
circulation of water to remove loosely bound
substances from the surface; 2 detergent cycle —
action of the cleaning chemical (acid or alkali) to
release the deposit from the surface, and in which
the majority of cleaning takes place during this
cycle; 3 postrinse — in which deposit and cleaning
chemical are removed by circulation of water,
possible 4 sanitization — disinfection and surface
conditioning, and then 5 final rinse — circulation of
water prior to product processing.
Fouling and subsequent cleaning have both
economic and environmental impact. The costs
have been categorized (Pritchard 1988) as:
1 Loss of production: reduced process efficiency
and the need to shut down to clean.
2 Maintenance costs: the need to install complex
cleaning processes.
3 Fuel costs: increased heating and pumping
power.
4 Capital expenditure: larger heat exchanger area
and extra pump capacity.
In addition, environmental effects are increasingly
important, especially given legislative pressures
towards zero emission processes. Solutions used
for cleaning must be neutralized before being released,
so the products of this step are of main environmental
concern (Grasshoff 1997). Phosphates (added to
cleaning agents to reduce water hardness) are of
ecological risk due to excess water phytilication/
eutrophication. Complexing agents added to
cleaning solutions may also remobilize heavy
© 2006 Society of Dairy Technology
Composition Appearance
Protein: 50–60% Soft voluminous,
Mineral: 30–35% curd-like material,
Fat: 4–8% white or cream in colour
Protein: 15–20% Brittle, gritty and
Mineral: 70% grey
Fat: 4–8% in colour
metals (Grasshoff 1997). Recovery and re-use of
CIP chemicals reduce the load on sewerage, although
in all cases the effluent must at some point be
released, either by processing on site or by release
to a local plant for indirect disposal.
Cleaning processes are currently carried out
semi-empirically, using either a fixed time or a
cleaning solution volume that is known to give
repeatable clean results. Although much research
has been carried out to optimize the operation of
milk processing plants through understanding of
fouling (for example Georgiadis et al. 1998; Peter-
meier et al. 2002; Grijspeerdt et al. 2004), little
work on systematic optimization of cleaning exists.
Potentially, this might be combined with cleaning
schedules to optimize overall plant operation. Under-
standing cleaning requires knowledge of how the
deposit is removed, as well as the effect of process
parameters (such as temperature, chemical type
and concentration, flow rate) and plant design on
cleaning. Monitoring the extent of cleaning is also
critical and would be easier to optimize if the state
of the level of cleaning throughout the plant is
sensitively and accurately known. The aim of this
paper is to review recent work on cleaning, espe-
cially in terms of identifying the critical chemical
and physical factors that influence removal, and
to attempt to show how useful models might be
developed.
Cleaning of dairy deposits
Traditional dairy CIP involves circulation of alkali
and acid solutions, although single stage cleaners
can also be used, as they involve only one chemical
rinse (Timperley and Smeulders 1987). Protein
deposits swell when they adsorb water, and alkali
solutions can reinforce this swelling and also dis-
solve the protein (Jeurnink and Brinkman 1994).
Cracks can then form, which increase penetration
of the cleaning solution into the deposit layer. Plett
(1985) described the possible steps involved in
removal:
1 Possible bulk reaction between components of
the chemical and the bulk fluid (e.g. hard water ions).
2 Transport of chemical to the surface, affected by
temperature, concentration and flow.
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 Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
Figure 1 Change in pressure drop with time for a plate heat
exchanger fouled with proteinaceous deposit, undergoing
cleaning from sodium hydroxide, showing (a) initial increase
in pressure drop due to swelling, followed by final decrease
in pressure drop to a clean state; and (b) the effect of pulsing
chemical (grey sections) and water.
3 Transport into the deposit: penetration of chemi-
cals into deposit is dependent on its structure. Surface
active agents can increase penetration due to wetting.
4 Reaction between deposit and cleaning chemical
including melting, mechanical break-up, wetting,
swelling, desorption, emulsification, hydrolysation,
saponification and dispersion.
5 Transport to the interface: reaction products
diffuse out of the deposit.
6 Transport to the bulk: concentration gradients
and hydrodynamic conditions allow the transport
of the reaction products into the bulk.
Visualizations of the cleaning of milk and whey
protein concentrate deposits (such as Grasshoff
1989; Bird and Bartlett 1995; Christian 2004) have
shown the non-uniform nature of deposit removal.
The process has three stages:
1 Swelling — alkali solution contacts the deposit
and causes swelling, forming a protein matrix of
high void fraction.
2 Erosion — uniform removal of deposit by shear
stress forces and diffusion. There may be a plateau
region of constant cleaning rate, but this depends
on the balance between swelling and removal.
3 Decay — the swollen deposit is thin and no
longer uniform, so that removal of isolated islands
occurs by shear stress and mass transport.
78 © 2006 Society of Dairy Technology
These stages have been seen by many workers,
such as Bird (1992), Gillham (1997), Grasshoff
(1997) and Tuladhar (2001) using visual methods,
heat-transfer monitoring and fluid dynamic gauging.
The effect of swelling is seen in Figure 1(a),
which shows the pressure drop across a section of
a plate heat exchanger (PHE) during cleaning. The
pressure drop increases due to swelling before
removal of deposit. Scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) analysis shows that a more open structure is
formed when whey proteins come in contact with
alkali solution (Bird 1992; Gillham 1997). This
expansion increases the volume of the deposit and
thus the pressure drop through the processing
plant. Figure 1(b) shows that swelling and removal
processes are simultaneous. The figure shows the
cleaning of a PHE by pulses of sodium hydroxide
(shown in grey): during the first pulse of chemical,
swelling raises the pressure drop, and then removal
lowers it, but when the chemical is replaced by
water, the pressure increases again for a short time.
This is because the removal rate is reduced by using
water while the swelling process continues due to
sodium hydroxide that has diffused into the deposit.
The process reaches a point where no more removal
occurs, but the exchanger is still fouled, as shown
by the second pulse of chemical, which results in a
further increase in pressure drop due to swelling.
PHYSICAL AND CHEMICAL
FA C T O R S I N C L E A N I N G
A large number of studies have been carried out
to examine the effects of different factors on the
cleaning of dairy soils, including studies of physical
factors such as flow rate as well as examination of
the effects of chemistry on cleaning.
Effect of temperature
In general, as temperature increases, the cleaning
rate increases (Hankinson and Carver 1968; De
Goederen et al. 1989; Fryer and Bird 1994; Alfa
Laval 2003). Gillham et al. (1999) found that removal
of whey protein deposits from stainless steel pipes
was strongly dependent on temperature. The swell-
ing phase did not seem to be a strong function of
temperature, although the rest of the process shows
a strong sensitivity to temperature. The length of
the decay phase significantly decreased when
the deposit–liquid interface temperature exceeds
50°C. Above this temperature little further effect
on the length of the decay phase is seen.
Effect of chemical concentration
Increasing cleaning solution concentration decreases
the time to clean (for example Gallot-Lavallee
et al. 1984). Plett (1985) reported a near linear
increase in cleaning rate with increasing detergent
concentration, but that a maximum cleaning rate
Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
occurs. Some authors have reported optimal chem-
ical concentrations that minimize cleaning time
(De Goederen et al. 1989; Fryer and Bird 1994;
Jeurnink and Brinkman 1994). This action of the
cleaning solution on the deposit structure has been
studied using SEM (Tissier and Lalande 1986;
Belmar-Beiny and Fryer 1993). After exposure to a
2 wt percentage NaOH solution, images showed a
less open structure than at 0.5 wt percentage, that may
not be as susceptible to fluid shear, and is therefore
more difficult to remove than more open structures.
Other authors have explained this effect by: 1 the
swelling of the deposit inhibiting transportation at
higher concentrations (Plett 1985); 2 formation of a
‘glassy’ deposit (Bird and Fryer 1991); or 3 a rubber-
like deposit (Jeurnink and Brinkman 1994). The
existence of cleaning optima has not been proved
generally, but the data do suggest that the solution
to a given practical problem might not be simply to
increase the concentration of chemical.
Alternative chemical formulations include the
use of enzymes. Initial issues with respect to the
use of enzymes to clean dairy equipment included
high costs and low cleaning efficiency (Grasshoff
1997). With increasing environmental concern,
however, enzymes are a promising alternative to
traditional chemicals (Grasshoff 2002; 2005).
Effect of flow
In CIP processes shear force is provided by fluid
flow. Increased flow rates induce greater surface
shear on the deposit. This reduces the contact time,
however, while cleaning solution must remain in
contact with the soil for long enough for it to take
effect. The underlying effect of flow rate on clean-
ing is difficult to determine as both mass transfer
and surface shear stress are related to flow. It has
been suggested that boundary layer thickness may
control cleaning, that is, as the boundary layer
becomes thinner, more deposit is protruding into
the turbulent flow and is removable (De Goederen
et al. 1989). Some workers have found a threshold
below which the mechanical effect of flow is
negligible (Jennings et al. 1957; Schlüssler 1976;
Jackson and Ming Low 1982) on tomato deposits,
although Bird and Fryer (1991) noted that there
was no significant change in cleaning rate when
moving from laminar to turbulent flow, and Bird
(1992) found no minimum flow velocity. Timper-
ley and Smeulders (1988) found that the cleaning
time of a PHE decreased with increasing flow rate,
the greatest reduction occurring upon increasing
the flow velocity from 0.2 to 0.5 m/s. In general, it
is clear that the higher the flow rate, the shorter the
cleaning time, but the cost of pumping the cleaning
fluid may become excessive. Non-uniform flows
have also been investigated to determine whether
they could have increased cleaning behaviour.
Gillham et al. (2000) concluded that flow pulsing
© 2006 Society of Dairy Technology
had negligible effect on the initial ‘swelling’ phase,
but had significant effect on the latter stages of
removal phases. Enhancement of cleaning is evi-
dently controlled by a combination of surface shear
stress (amplitude) and frequency affects, and does
not solely depend on the shear stress. Flow reversal
seems especially useful, but is difficult in practice.
Trials on a ‘pigging’ system, which uses a mixture
of water and ice combined with a freezing point
depressant to remove deposits such as jam, mar-
garine, salad cream and toothpaste, have been
reported (Quarini 2002). Results show a significant
improvement on cleaning behaviour compared to
water at 20°C. Results are not, however, compared
to cleaning with chemicals. It is also not clear yet
to what extent pigging removes very thin deposits,
for example, but it may reduce rinsing times.
Friis and Jensen (2002; 2005) discussed the use
of computational fluid dynamics in predicting the
ability to cleaned, an interesting approach that offers
the possibility of designing cleanable equipment
more efficiently.
Different modes of removal
Visual observation of deposit shows that there are dif-
ferent modes of removal. For an extreme example,
Figure 2 shows removal of a disc of tomato paste
soaked in a flow of water. The area of the surface
covered by the paste and the heat transfer through
the paste are followed as a function of time. Removal
of the tomato paste comes all at once because diffu-
sion of water through to the interface lowers the inter-
facial forces between surface and deposit. In most
cases, removal is less clear cut. Removal of deposit
in chunks, however, by fracture of deposit–deposit
bonds or deposit–surface bonds is often important.
Often, the removal of protein deposits occurs
in a different way, through gradual dissolution of
the surface and dissolving of the deposit. Figure 4
shows a series of images that illustrate this, although
it is more difficult to see removal here as the white
deposit first becomes transparent and is then
removed gradually.
To model cleaning we need to understand how
these different modes of removal arise and how
different types of deposit are cleaned in practice.
The section below describes ongoing work to study
and model cleaning.
S U R FA C E A N D B U L K E F F E C T S
The above has shown the complexity of cleaning,
which can occur by gradual dissolution and reac-
tion, or through removal and fracture of chunks of
the deposit. The physical properties of the deposit,
and how they change during cleaning, are obviously
critical. Better understanding of the materials’
properties has been developed to allow the use of
micromanipulation equipment (Liu et al. 2002).
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 Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
Figure 2 Removal of tomato paste by a flow of water, showing the surface area covered by deposit and the heat transfer coefficient
(HTC) through the deposit. Inserts show surface after (a) 50, (b) 1000, (c) 1250, and (d) 1260 s, showing how all of the deposit
can be removed in one go.
The force required to disrupt a surface film is deter-
mined by drawing a probe across the film, and the
effectiveness of removal followed both by filming
the process and by examining the surface afterwards.
The method was developed to study biofilms (Chen
et al. 1998), but has been extended to study mate-
rials such as tomato pastes, milk and egg proteins
(Liu et al. 2002; 2006a; 2006b).
The force required to remove the deposit is
measured by drawing the micromanipulation probe
across the surface of the deposit. Two types of
measurement are possible: 1 total removal, in which
both adhesive and cohesive forces are overcome,
and 2 partial removal of deposit to measure co-
hesive strength. For tomato paste, the force required
for partial removal of the deposit exceeds that for
the total removal, showing that cohesive forces
between the deposits exceed those of adhesion
between surface and deposit (Liu et al. 2002). Sim-
ilar types of measurement have been made for milk
proteins. The initial thickness of the deposit layer
was around 1300 µm. Force measurements were
taken after leaving the gap between the probe and
substrate to 900, 600, 100 µm (partial removal)
and 20 µm (total removal), respectively. Here, as
shown in Figure 4, the energy required to remove
the deposit decreases with distance from the sur-
face. Only at the smallest gap is all of the deposit
removed, corresponding to the breakage of surface–
deposit bonds, whereas larger gaps leave layers of
deposit on the surface, so the energy corresponds
to the breakage of deposit–deposit bonds. The energy
required to remove deposit decreases with distance
from the surface, suggesting that the cohesive forces
between elements of the deposit are weaker than
those of adhesion. This is opposite to the behaviour
of tomato starch, in which it is easier to remove the
whole of the deposit than it is to remove a surface
80 © 2006 Society of Dairy Technology
layer. This behaviour is reflected in the cleaning of
surfaces. As seen in Figures 2 and 3, tomato paste
removal tends to occur by fracture at the surface,
where the bonds are weakest, whereas milk removal
occurs gradually from the surface down.
In practice, the deposit will fail or be removed by
the mechanism which requires least energy. One
long-term wish of the industry has been to find
a surface that does not foul or that cleans quickly.
Surface treatments have been investigated for a
number for years; for example Britten et al. (1988)
studied the effect of coatings such as polymethyl-
acrylate, nylon and cellulose acetate, and Yoon and
Lund (1994) investigated electropolished stainless
steel and Teflon- and polysiloxane- coated plates.
Ion implantation magnetron spluttering, plasma-
enhanced vapour deposition, dynamic mixing and
autocatalytic Ni-P-PTFE are among the more recent
surface modifications investigated (Zhao et al. 2002).
Beuf et al. (2003) showed that the cleaning efficiency
of NaOH is considerably increased with Ni-P-PTFE-
treated surfaces and Rosaninho et al. (2003) found
that surface with low electron donor values (such as
Ni-P-PTFE-treated surfaces) are less susceptible to
fouling from calcium phosphate solutions.
Such low-adhesion coatings (Müller-Steinhagen
and Zhao 1997) have been shown to reduce fouling
from mineral scales, and work is underway to
study the application of modified surfaces in food
cleaning (Santos et al. 2004).
For bacteria, it has been known for a long time
that surface energy can affect adhesion (the ‘Baier
curve’, Baier 1980). Zhao et al. (2004) developed
a theory for the minimum adhesion energy between
deposit and surface exists, given by:
 1 
LW LW 
γ surface =    γ LW
foulant + γ fluid  (1)
 2  
Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
Figure 3 Images recorded during a whey protein deposit
removal experiment (1% NaOH, 50°C) showing gradual
removal.
LW
where γ surface , γ LW LW
foulant and γ fluid are the Lifshitz-
van der Waals (LW) surface free energy of the
surface, foulant and fluid (e.g. water). If the surface
energy of the stainless steel surface is reduced to
the fouling-resistant value, foulant adhesion force
to the surface could be decreased significantly, and
the fouling deposit could be removed more easily.
The effectiveness of this approach has been demon-
strated by Zhao et al. (2004) for microbial adhesion.
Liu et al. (2006c) discuss adhesion to a range of
stainless steel disks modified by Ni-P-PTFE
composite coatings, using tomato pastes as model
foulants. Contact angles of the Ni-P-PTFE
composite coatings and tomato paste (baked and
unbaked) were obtained and the theoretical minima
identified in the region of 25–26 mN/m. The
micromanipulation probe of Liu et al. (2002) was
© 2006 Society of Dairy Technology
Figure 4 Pulling energy for partial removal and total removal
of milk protein deposits. The gap between probe and substrate
was kept at 900, 600, 100 and 20 µm, respectively (Reprinted
from the International Dairy Journal, 16, Liu W, Christian
GK, Zhang Z and Fryer PJ, Direct measurement of the force
required to disrupt and remove fouling deposits of whey
protein concentrate, 164–172, Copyright (2006), with
permission from Elsevier).
then used to measure removal forces. The effect
of surface treatment can be quantified by the
probe. Experiments have studied the removal of
tomato paste from surfaces with energies ranging
from 15 to 40 mN/m. Details of surfaces are given
in Zhao et al. (2002; 2004): topography and
roughness can be significantly different.
Figure 5(a) shows data for unbaked pastes of
different thicknesses. At the lowest thickness there
is a minimum adhesive strength between surface
energies of 20 and 25 mN/m. The data are scattered,
but the minimum is clear. The force measured by
the micromanipulation probe is a composite of
the cohesive forces between deposit elements and
the adhesion to the surface. This is shown by data
for different thicknesses:
1 As the thickness increases, the force required
increases, reflecting the need to overcome
cohesion between elements of the deposit and to
force the deposit to break and flow with the probe
away from the sample surface; as the thickness
increases, so does this force.
2 The minimum becomes more difficult to identify
as the thickness of deposit increases, reflecting
the decreased contribution of the surface forces to
the whole. At the highest thicknesses used, there is
no measurable minimum; the curve simply flattens
out at the lowest surface energies.
The simplest model for the relationship between
the measured apparent adhesive strength per unit
area, σ, and the deposit thickness is that it increases
linearly with the thickness, x, of the deposit:
σ = ω s + ψv x (2)
where ωs is the work needed to overcome surface
bonds and ψv is the force per unit volume required
to overcome the deposit–deposit bonds. This
implies that all of the deposit is removed, and that
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 Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
Figure 5 Variation of apparent adhesive strength for unbaked
tomato paste samples of different thicknesses (a) plotted as a
function of surface free energy, showing both surface and bulk
effects, and (b) plotted as a function of thickness for three
surface energies, showing a common straight line (Reprinted
from Innovative Food Science and Technologies, Liu W, Fryer
PJ, Zhang Z, Zhao Q and Liu Y, Identification of cohesive and
adhesive effects in the cleaning of food fouling deposits,
Copyright (2006), with permission from Elsevier. (Article
will appear in an upcoming issue)).
all is equally deformed (ψv being constant implies
that all parts of the deposit require the same work
input to be deformed and removed). Figure 5(b)
replots some of the data of Figure 5(a) as a function
of thickness. For surfaces of surface energy 20–
25.5 mN/m shown in Figure 5(b), the data all lie
on a single straight line, with a slope of 240 kJ/m3
and an intercept of 540 mJ/m2. Where the surface
energy exceeds 28 mN/m, the graph is a curve
rather than a line (i.e. the higher the surface energy
the more curved the data).
The success of the simple model for removal is
encouraging, and shows that both surface and bulk
processes are involved in cleaning. At higher
surface energies the model breaks down. It might
be expected that under these circumstances a
different mode of failure might take place. Liu
et al. (2006d) discuss more detailed models and
develop a better understanding of the fracture modes
by which cleaning takes place.
82 © 2006 Society of Dairy Technology
The results demonstrate that modifying the
surface energy can affect the energy required to
clean the surface. The problem in practice will be
in producing surfaces that are cheap (and safe)
enough for use in the food industry, and ensuring
that they do not get broken down in operation, as
the surfaces must stay effective over the lifetime of
a plant. It might be that other approaches are more
feasible, such as the addition of a chemical during
the last stages of cleaning that changes the surface
properties to resist fouling and/ or aid subsequent
cleaning.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
Fouling from milk results from protein and mineral
deposition, each of which results in different
problems for cleaning. Cleaning time is a function
of a number of variables, both chemical (such as the
cleaning chemical type and concentration, and the
temperature) and physical (such as the flow rate, which
affects the fluid shear on the surface of the deposit).
In milk cleaning, protein deposit is first swollen
by the action of hydroxide and then removed by
shear. The cleaning rate increases with increasing
temperature and surface shear stress, but there can
be an optimal concentration of hydroxide, above
which the deposit becomes difficult to remove.
Recent work on developing new cleaning methods
includes the use of pulsed flows, enzyme cleaners
and ice pigs, as well as surface modification.
It is possible to separate adhesive and cohesive
effects in cleaning: some deposits (such as tomato
paste) are essentially cohesive, whereas protein
deposits (such as milk) are adhesive. Cleaning
involves reaction of the deposit into a viscoelastic
gel that adheres to the surface. This classification is
useful as it allows decisions to be made about
selection of cleaning protocols. Use of modified
surfaces shows that 1 the theoretical minimum
adhesion condition can be found in practice (at
least for tomato deposits), but that 2 the effect of
the surface decreases with increasing deposit thick-
ness, as would be expected. More work needs to be
carried out to see the extent to which these types of
result can be applied to dairy processing, and how
dairy deposits behave in practice. A very simple
model for the work required to remove the deposit
has been developed and gives a very promising fit
to the data. This type of model offers the potential
of being able to predict the effects of changing
the physics and chemistry of the cleaning system,
through changes in surface or chemical treatment.
The modelling of cleaning is in its infancy,
which is surprising given its importance as a dairy
process operation. The work described here is not
yet suitable for industrial practice, but hopefully
offers indications of how the problems of cleaning
can be reduced.
Vol 59, No 2 May 2006
A C K N OW L E D G E M E N T S
We wish to acknowledge financial support from
The UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences
Research Council (BBSRC), DEFRA UK and the
Food Processing Faraday.
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