Optum Series Elements are used for critical food and dairy separation processes where high production yields and state-of-the-art sanitary construction is required.
This series includes Optum Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Optum Nanofiltration (NF) elements.
New energy efficient design reduces costs and delivers against multiple environmental health and safety initiatives in food processing applications
Reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint of the recirculation pump by up to 9% versus other shelled elements and up to 25% versus WTS standard cage-wrapped elements.
Improved employee ergonomics with 10-20% less force required during installation and removal. Optum RO elements also maintain better element scroll integrity during operation than standard cage-wrapped elements leading to easier removal.
Blister-free construction from previous generations of products in our sanitary portfolio is utilized in Optum RO elements, along with a Durasan* cage underneath the sleeves.
Reduced plastic waste versus other shelled elements, in a plant with 200 elements, using Optum RO elements for 10 years will keep over 1,100 lbs (500 kg) of plastic out of landfills.
High performance reverse osmosis membrane maximizes concentration and dewatering.
Extended shelf life is provided through enhanced packaging techniques.
Strict product compliance is a foundation of our sanitary portfolio including use of materials compliant with US FDA 21 CFR (Subchapter B, Parts 175, 176, 177, 178, and 182) and EU regulations (1935/2004 and 10/2011). Optum RO elements also have kosher and halal certification.
Product Details
Patent-pending sanitary geometry creates turbulence and a small amount of local flow reversal near the surface of the shell that reduces fluid bypass versus competitor elements with shells and standard cage-wrapped elements
Annular space betweenouter shell and housing wall
At 10 psi pressure drop in side-by-side testing, Optum RO8038C30 elements required ~5% less feed flow than other competitor elements with shells, and ~20% less than our standard cage elements.
Membrane filtration is an essential part of producing milk, cheese, whey, lactose, and many other valuable dairy ingredients. Reverse Osmosis (RO) and Nanofiltration (NF) membranes maintain all nutrients while removing water, and are widely used for the concentration, demineralization and separation of dairy ingredients derived from milk and whey.
Whey milk concentration
Whey is a by-product of the production of hard, semi-hard and soft cheeses. It is a valuable raw material for the production of whey powder and value-added products, such as whey protein concentrate and isolate.
Concentration of whey on its production site is the major application of reverse osmosis (RO), for to increase the concentration in dry metter and or to obtain partial demineralisation reverse osmosis is It is now frequently combined with nanofiltration (NF).
In whey it is 94%
From water to water
Permeates originating from reverse osmosis or nanofiltration processes as well as condensates from evaporators are practically water. With an additional reverse osmosis treatment normally referred to as “polishing,” this water can be purified and re-used for cleaning purposes. With further heat treatment or UV light treatment, it is even possible to use the water as process water.
Development of newer membranes with high flux and rejection characteristics have increased the success rate of water reuse in dairy processing.
The entire dairy plant represents a multi-technology membrane system using reverse osmosis, nanofiltration and a RO-polisher to achieve a process with zero discharge. In this case, the NF permeate and RO polisher retentate are recycled back to the feed tank with only RO/NF concentrate product and RO-polisher permeate water for reuse. This is an ideal process set-up where the combination of different membranes leaves no by-products, so that all process streams can be reused or sold as valuable products.
