Crossflow microfiltration of gum arabic solutions: Comparison of the classical system with the co-current permeate flow system |
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Authors: | Martine Decloux,Manuel Dornier,& Isabelle Gratius |
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Affiliation: | Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Industries Agricoles et Alimentaires, Food Engineering Department, Institut National de Recherche Agronomique 1, avenue des Olympiades 91305 Massy Cedex, France |
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Abstract: | Gum arabic is a natural gum exuded mainly by the trees Acacia senegal , currently used in the food industries for its emulsifying, thickening and stabilizing properties. Its present processing includes various operations providing a quite turbid product. Crossflow microfiltration could be interesting for the clarification and the cold-pasteurization of the gum arabic solutions. Several experiments were therefore made with the crossflow microfiltration unit at ENSIA, using two different systems: the classical one (without permeate circulation), and the co-current permeate flow system (CCPF) allowing the exploration of the low transmembrane pressures range. With gum arabic solutions of 0.17g solids g−1 solution and 70°C, the best results after 60 min of filtration (105.7 L h−1 m−2, 4.4% of solids retention and 83.4% of clarification) were obtained with the CCPF system at low transmembrane pressure and high crossflow velocity (0.3 bar and 7.5ms−1). |
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Keywords: | Acacia Senegal clarification membrane filtration |
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