Study of fouling mechanism in pineapple juice clarification by ultrafiltration

The flux behavior of ceramic and polysulfone membranes was examined during cross-flow ultrafiltration (UF) of depectinized pineapple juice. The effects of transmembrane pressure (TMP) and temperature on membrane fouling have been evaluated. The observed flux decay was modeled using a modified form of the differential equation used to describe classical dead-end filtration process. The mechanism of fouling during the cross-flow ultrafiltration was identified by estimation of the parameters model according to a nonlinear regression optimization procedure. Analysis of the results revealed that hollow fiber membrane separation process is controlled by a cake filtration mechanism and a pore blocking fouling mechanism controls ceramic tubular membrane. The model parameter k was modeled as a temperature and transmembrane pressure function for each combination juice-membrane. The main physical chemistry properties of pineapple juice were evaluated in order to determine the condition that supply the highest permeated flux and best clarified juice.