Flocculation is widely employed to measure the progress of curd formation in the initial stages of cheese making to determine how long the curds must set. The reaction involving the rennet micelles are modeled by Smoluchowski kinetics. During the renneting of milk the micelles can approach one another and flocculate, a process that involves hydrolysis of molecules and macropeptides.
Flocculation is also used during cheese wastewater treatment. Three different coagulants are mainly used:
* FeSO (iron(II) sulfate)
* Al(SO) (aluminium sulfate)
* FeCl (iron(III) chloride)