Membrane-based solvent extraction of sulfur aroma compounds: influence of operating conditions on mass transfer coefficients in a hollow fiber contactor Original Research Article

Membrane-based solvent extraction is proposed to recover sulfur aroma compounds from an industrial effluent. It consists in transferring the aroma compounds from water into an organic solvent by contacting the two phases inside the pores of a membrane. Mass transfer experiments were performed using a crossflow hollow fiber membrane module, with hexane and miglyol as stripping solvents and synthetic aqueous feed phases with three diluted sulfur compounds. Selective extraction of the aroma compounds is due to the high partition coefficients of aroma compounds between water and the selected solvents. Diffusion inside the organic-filled pores is negligible using hexane, but becomes very important using miglyol, due to its high viscosity. Both tube and shell side compartments are able to receive the feed phase. For these two configurations, mass transfer coefficients are equivalent using hexane as a stripping solvent, but a larger interfacial area is offered when the aqueous feed phase flows in the shell.