Membrane Technology in Food Processing Industry

A special issue of Membranes (ISSN 2077-0375).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 September 2017)

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
Advanced Food Systems Faculty Research Unit, School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Science, Victoria University, Melbourne, VIC 8001, Australia
Interests: physical chemistry of dairy foods; dairy science and technology; advanced processing technologies and techniques; fermented dairy products; application of advanced membrane technologies in dairy processing

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Since the early 1960s, with advancements in developments of membranes, the food industry has been on the forefront of applying and driving further membrane and process improvements by consistently providing active input. What really distinguishes the application of membrane technology in food processing from other process industries is a required need to retain appropriate functionality, either physical or physiological, and, more often, both, of food components. For this reason, operating conditions employed in various segments of food industry are chemically and physically mild, which, in turn, requires that membrane processing proceeds fairly efficiently without major hurdles. For this reason, membrane technologies, including reverse osmosis (RO), nanofiltration (NF), ultrafiltration (UF) and microfiltration (MF), are widely used with main applications in dairy, fruit juice production, clarification of fermented products, isolation of animal and plant proteins, and the sugar industry. Novel membrane processes, including pervaporation, electrodialysis, membrane distillation and use of liquid membranes, provide another venue for diversifying the utilization and development of new processes and products.

While engineering designs and the chemistry of new membranes are being continuously improved, these need to be strongly linked to a complexity of various food systems. Therefore, materials used in membrane fabrications and modifications need to comply with rigorous food quality and safety standards, thus, incompatibility or stability of these materials should never be a problem during processing. For this reason, this particular Special Issue is devoted to critically assess current state of knowledge in regards to recent developments and applications of novel membranes and systems in the food processing industry including novel materials, membrane designs, fabrications and modifications, and fouling and cleaning.

Prof. Dr. Todor Vasiljevic
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • Membrane fabrications
  • Membrane modifications
  • Membrane fouling
  • Novel membrane technologies
  • Membrane cleaning

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Article
Membrane Distillation of Meat Industry Effluent with Hydrophilic Polyurethane Coated Polytetrafluoroethylene Membranes
by M. G. Mostafa, Bo Zhu, Marlene Cran, Noel Dow, Nicholas Milne, Dilip Desai and Mikel Duke
Membranes 2017, 7(4), 55; https://doi.org/10.3390/membranes7040055 - 29 Sep 2017
Cited by 23 | Viewed by 7240
Abstract
Meat rendering operations produce stick water waste which is rich in proteins, fats, and minerals. Membrane distillation (MD) may further recover water and valuable solids, but hydrophobic membranes are contaminated by the fats. Here, commercial hydrophobic polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) membranes with a hydrophilic polyurethane [...] Read more.
Meat rendering operations produce stick water waste which is rich in proteins, fats, and minerals. Membrane distillation (MD) may further recover water and valuable solids, but hydrophobic membranes are contaminated by the fats. Here, commercial hydrophobic polytetrafluorethylene (PTFE) membranes with a hydrophilic polyurethane surface layer (PU-PTFE) are used for the first time for direct contact MD (DCMD) on real poultry, fish, and bovine stick waters. Metal membrane microfiltration (MMF) was also used to capture fats prior to MD. Although the standard hydrophobic PTFE membranes failed rapidly, PU-PTFE membranes effectively processed all stick water samples to colourless permeate with sodium rejections >99%. Initial clean solution fluxes 5–6 L/m2/h declined to less than half during short 40% water recovery tests for all stick water samples. Fish stick water uniquely showed reduced fouling and up to 78% water recovery. Lost flux was easily restored by rinsing the membrane with clean water. MMF prior to MD removed 92% of fats, facilitating superior MD performance. Differences in fouling between stick waters were attributed to temperature polarisation from higher melt temperature fats and relative proportions to proteins. Hydrophilic coated MD membranes are applicable to stick water processing but further studies should consider membrane cleaning and longer-term stability. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Membrane Technology in Food Processing Industry)
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