Future perspective of nanobubble technology in dairy processing applications

The dairy processing industry is highly diversified and manufacture different products, including fluid milk, beverages, fermented, fat-rich, frozen, and dried dairy products, and ingredients. This diversity becomes the driving force for the dairy industry to look for innovative and sustainable processing solutions. Nanobubble (NB) technology, a novel and emerging processing technique, utilizes gas nanobubbles with exceptional stability, large surface area, ability to generate free radicals and high mass transfer rates. In this review, we discuss in detail the applications of NB technology in dairy processing, including fundamental properties of NBs along with their generation methods. Further, in a separate section we investigate and postulate the interaction of NBs with individual milk constituents. This review will probe the current understanding of the interactions of nanobubbles with milk constituents and its mechanistic effects on functionality in different dairy products and applications. There are limited studies for utilization of NB technology in dairy processing to enhance the processability of dairy streams such as milk protein concentrates and concentrated milk, reduced fouling during membrane filtration as well as increased potency of antimicrobials. The results are promising from these limited lab/pilot scale studies conducted. Therefore, future research should focus on designing nanobubble generators for continuous in-line industrial applications. Further research is required to gain in-depth understanding of NBs interactions with milk constituents to expand applications of NBs on a large scale in dairy processing.