A pilot scale study of reverse osmosis for the purification of condensate arising from distillery stillage concentration plant

Reverse osmosis (RO) is an interesting process to eliminate small organic solutes (carboxylic acids and alcohols) from distillery condensates before recycling them into the fermentation step. This work investigates the influence of transmembrane pressure, pH and volume reduction factor (VRF) on the efficiency of reverse osmosis treatment of condensate from distillery stillage concentration at pilot scale using three pre-selected membranes (CPA2 and ESPA2 from Hydranautics, BW30 from DOW). Performances were assessed according to permeate flux, solutes rejection and abatement of fermentation inhibition. Transmembrane pressure increase leads to an increase of these three parameters with a plateau for rejections and abatement at 20 bar; however, in order to comply with membranes manufacturerʹs recommendations and to limit or delay polarization and fouling, it was decided to keep the permeate flux below a value of 30 L h−1 m−2. This corresponded to a maximum pressure of 10 bar for CPA2 and ESPA2 membranes and 25 bar for BW30 membrane. pH increase leads to a diminution of permeate flux and an increase of carboxylic acids rejection whatever the membrane; nevertheless, no abatement of fermentation inhibition is observed. Increasing VRF provokes a decrease of the permeate flux. Although local rejections are stable, the mean rejection assessed with the raw condensate (feed) and the mean permeate decreases. However, the fermentation inhibition remains under 10% up to a VRF of 8. BW30 membrane exhibits the highest rejections and inhibition abatement. On the basis of the pilot scale results with the BW30 membrane, a preliminary estimation of the membrane area is proposed for an industrial plant with 100 m3 h−1 of condensate flow rate and the optimized parameters (pressure 25 bar, no pH modification, VRF 4 and 8).