Ranasinghe Madushika K, Ballon Aurélie, de Lamo-Castellví Sílvia, Ferrando Montserrat, Güell Carme
Department d'Enginyeria Quimica, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Avda. Països Catalans, 26, 43007 Tarragona, Spain.
Department of Animal Science, Faculty of Animal Science and Export Agriculture, Uva Wellassa University, Badulla 90000, Uva, Sri Lanka.
Membranes (Basel). 2023 Jan 20;13(2):137. doi: 10.3390/membranes13020137.
Mealworm, TM (), and black soldier fly, BSF () are of special interest for food and feed applications due to their environmental benefits such as low water and land requirements, low greenhouse gas emissions, and high feed-conversion efficiency. This study assesses the use of ultrafiltration (UF) to fractionate protein concentrates from TM and BSF (TMPC, BSFPC) in order to enhance emulsifying and foaming properties. A 30 kDa regenerated cellulose acetate membrane enabled the separation of concentrate and permeate fractions for both insect proteins from two different initial feed concentrations (10 and 7.5 g/L). Permeate flux and protein transmission behave differently depending on the insect type and the initial concentration; while for TMPC permeate flux increases with a decrease in the initial protein concentration, it is not affected for BSFPC. The existing membrane cleaning protocols are suitable for recovering water flux after UF of insect proteins, enabling membrane re-use. Emulsifying activity is maintained for all the TMPC fractions, but it is significantly lower for the permeate fractions of BSFPC. Foaming properties are maintained for all the UF fractions of BSFPC and the ones from 7.5 g/L TMPC. Acidic solubilization leads to a fraction with enhanced emulsifying capacity and one with higher foaming capacity than the original for BSFPC. This study opens the door to membrane technology for insect protein fractionation, which has not been studied so far and has already provided useful solutions for other animal and plant proteins.
黄粉虫（TM）和黑水虻（BSF）因其对环境有益，如对水和土地需求低、温室气体排放低以及饲料转化效率高，在食品和饲料应用方面具有特殊意义。本研究评估了使用超滤（UF）从黄粉虫和黑水虻中分离蛋白质浓缩物（TMPC、BSFPC）以增强乳化和发泡性能。一个30 kDa的再生醋酸纤维素膜能够从两种不同的初始进料浓度（10 g/L和7.5 g/L）下分离两种昆虫蛋白的浓缩物和渗透物馏分。渗透通量和蛋白质透过率因昆虫类型和初始浓度而异；对于TMPC，渗透通量随初始蛋白质浓度的降低而增加，而对于BSFPC则不受影响。现有的膜清洗方案适用于昆虫蛋白超滤后水通量的恢复，可实现膜的重复使用。所有TMPC馏分的乳化活性均得以保持，但BSFPC渗透馏分的乳化活性显著较低。BSFPC的所有超滤馏分以及7.5 g/L TMPC的超滤馏分的发泡性能均得以保持。酸溶解导致BSFPC产生一种乳化能力增强的馏分和一种发泡能力高于原始馏分的馏分。本研究为昆虫蛋白分级分离的膜技术打开了大门，该技术此前尚未得到研究，且已为其他动植物蛋白提供了有用的解决方案。
