Desenvolvimento de membranas poliméricas para aplicação na indústria de alimentos

Abstract

Membrane technology is today very well disseminate in the food industry. In this field, membranes are state-of-the-art technology for a series of operations of clarification, concentration, fractionation, desalination and purification of a variety of food products. Since the membrane is the main element process, several studies were conducted to the development specific membranes for particular separations. The objective of the work was to synthesize polymeric membranes by phase inversion technology technique. Asymmetric cellulose acetate membranes were synthesized and evaluated by the following parameters: exposure time in the air for solvent evaporation (1, 3, 5 and 15 min) and polimeric solution composition. The Forward Osmosis tests were carried out with a 0.5 M NaCl concentrated solution (draw solution) and distilled water as a diluted solution (low salinity). The membranes performance were evaluated by reverse salt flux. It verified that the main responsible for salt flux descrease was exposure time in the air for solvent evaporation, which formed a dense film in the membrane surface.