Study of aqueous pectin solutions microfiltration process by ceramic membrane - doi: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v33i2.7000

Abstract

In this work, pressure effects, separation efficiency and resistive effects of microfiltration of pectin solution were investigated. Stabilized permeate flux values were obtained for solutions concentrations of 1.0 and 2.0 g L^-1 under different pressure conditions of 0.4, 0.8, 1.2 and 1.6 bar. A full factorial design with two levels was applied to evaluate the effects of the pressure, temperature and concentration in the process resistances. The experiments were performed in a crossflow microfiltration system with multitubular membrane with nominal pore size of 0.44 µm and feed flow of 1.0 m^³ h^-1. Pectin retention coefficients and process resistances were obtained following the resistances in series model. It was observed that the highest values of permeate flux for concentration solution of 1.0 and 2.0 g L^-1 were at pressure of 1.2 and 0.8 bar, respectively, however, the lowest obtained permeate flux were at 1.6 bar. The permeate flux and the polarization resistance increased, respectively, with increasing temperature and concentration. The results showed that the lowest value of the retention coefficient was 93.4% and the most significant resistance was due to fouling. The highest value of resistance was 4.13 x 109 m^² kg^-1 at temperature of 30°C and concentration of 2.0 g L^-1