Journal of Food Engineering 69 (2005) 437441 www.elsevier.

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Assessing dealcoholization systems based on reverse osmosis

M.V. Pilipovik a, C. Riverol
a b

b,*

Armach Engineers, Av. Principal de los Palos Grandes, Los Palos Grandes, Caracas, Venezuela Chemical Engineering Department, University of West Indies, St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Received 11 March 2004; accepted 17 August 2004 Available online 12 October 2004

Abstract Several production processes have been proposed for reduced-alcohol beverages. In general, the processes require specialized equipment with an inherently higher production cost. Each process, however, has its advantages and disadvantages. A study about reverse osmosis is carried out in this paper. According to the results, the reverse osmosis is not economically feasible for the production of beverages with an alcohol percentage lower 0.45%. The original extract and carbohydrates are reduced lightly such that the beverage takes a rather worthy taste. Particularly, the original beverages with higher pH produce concentration polarization phenomena such that the fouling in the membrane is increased and the solute ux is reduced considerably. However the RO system can be improved whether compensation techniques are developed. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Reverse osmosis; Dealcoholization; Fermentation; Beverage; Operational parameters

1. Introduction The economics of dealcoholization of wine and other beverages using reverse osmosis technology have been continuously improving with a reduction of product cost as a result of lower investment costs and decreased power consumption (Tan, Xiao, & Li, 2003). However, the production of beer or wine with an alcohol percentage lower than 0.5% has been unsuccessful (Stein, 1993). The most important reverse osmosis (RO) operating parameters which have the largest eect on investment and operating cost are: recovery rate and the membrane. The recovery rate expresses the eectiveness of a membrane to remove salts or other components from the solution and directly aects the size and cost of all process equipment and power consumption. Increasing the recovery raises the brine concentration and the osmotic

pressure; however the feed ow is inversely proportional to the design recovery rate. Is especially attractive the membrane eectiveness as indicator of the quality of the system. The membranes for RO systems are made for concentrating compounds with molecular weights between 250 and 2000 Da, and removing monovalent salts, methanol and/or ethanol from aqueous solutions of these compounds. An ideal membrane has the following characteristics: High monovalent salts, methanol/ethanol rejection High permeability to water Resistant to high and low temperature Resistant to oxidizing agents Resistant to all kind of fouling (inorganic, organic, colloidal, and microbiological fouling) Chemically, physically, and thermally stable in aqueous solutions Capable of being formed to yield high membrane area-to-volume ratio (packing density) Long and reliable life Inexpensive

Corresponding author. Fax: +1 8686624414. E-mail address: criverol@eng.uwi.tt (C. Riverol).

0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2004.08.035

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Notations T Ks Js S d Kw Pf temperature (K) membrane permeability coecient for alcohol solute rate membrane surface area membrane thickness (800 SW) membrane permeability coecient for the permeate feed pressure Pd Pp Posb Posf Jw m dierence between feed pressure and permeate pressure permeate pressure osmotic pressure of the brine osmotic pressure of the feed permeate production molar concentration of all constituents of the solution

This contribution addresses the advantages, disadvantages and limitations of RO system. A set of experimental tests were prepared for evaluate the RO system in dierent operating conditions and type of alcohol beverages.

2. Materials and method Five alcoholic homemade beverages were used in this paper. The characteristics of the alcoholic beverages (AB) are shown the Table 1. The RO equipment is renew Spiral-wound system as depicted the Fig. 1. It consists of three leaves and two membrane elements. Each leaf has two at sheets of semipermeable membrane separated and supported by

a porous backing material and sealed together at the edges by special epoxy or polyurethane adhesives. The edges of the membrane are sealed on three sides only to form a exible envelope. This unit is then inserted into a glass-ber, pressure vessel for use. The alcoholic beverages are fed from a tank to the RO system to 20 L/h using a small pump and the temperature is maintained to 0 C using a small PLC unit. The pressure can be changed from 35 to 50 bar without major problem. The ltration process is continuing until that the tank is empty (approximately 2 h) and nally the ltrate ow was analyzed. All RO units can be described using a diusion model. According to Al Shaylis model (Al Shayli, 1998) based on pure diusion, feed ux through the membrane is given by     DP d P osf P osb s Jw Pf Pp Kw 1 2 d 2 The osmotic pressure is given by X P os 0:081T mi

Table 1 Homemade beverage specications AB-1 Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 4.0 5.5 0.8 5.1 90 1.4 AB-2 2.5 7.1 0.9 5.2 91 1.4 AB-3 2.9 6.0 2.0 5.2 90 1.4 AB-4 2.8 5.7 0.8 4.1 90 0.9 AB-5 2.87 5.7 0.8 6.0 90 2.5

Salt rejection expresses the eectiveness of a membrane to remove salts from the water. It can be calculated from the following equation:   product concentration %SR 1 100 3 feed concentration Finally the solute ow is obtained using the equation following:   S J s K s DC 4 d

3. Results and discussion The beverage under high pressure is passed through RO system. Water and low molecular weight compounds such as ethanol pass through the membrane while other compounds are retained. The thermal degra-

Fig. 1. Sprial membrane element.

M.V. Pilipovik, C. Riverol / Journal of Food Engineering 69 (2005) 437441 Table 2 Specications of nal product from AB-1 Pressure (bar) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 35 3.5 0.5 0.4 4.7 81 0.8 40 3.57 0.6 0.4 4.7 81 0.7 45 3.9 0.5 0.4 4.7 81 0.7 50 3.9 0.5 0.4 4.7 85 0.7

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Table 3 Specications of nal product from AB-2 Pressure (bar) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 35 2.4 0.9 0.4 4.8 81 0.8 40 2.4 0.8 0.4 4.7 81 0.7 45 2.5 0.5 0.4 4.7 81 0.7 50 2.5 0.5 0.4 4.7 85 0.7

Table 4 Specications of nal product from AB-3 Pressure (bar) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 35 2.8 0.9 0.4 4.8 81 0.8 40 2.8 0.8 0.4 4.7 81 0.7 45 2.9 0.5 0.4 4.7 81 0.7 50 2.9 0.5 0.4 4.7 85 0.7

Table 5 Specications of nal product from AB-4 Pressure (bar) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 35 2.7 0.9 0.6 4.4 81 1.0 40 2.7 0.8 0.6 4.5 81 1.1 45 2.7 0.5 0.6 4.5 81 1.1 50 2.8 0.5 0.6 4.5 85 1.1

driving legislation etc.), nevertheless, the equipment should work in the maximum pressure whether the quality of the nal product likes to be maintained. As consequence, it carries out an inherent higher production cost and consumption of power. Observing the Tables, the quality of the product was not constant and depending on the operability conditions dierent results were obtained. The most critical case is depicted in the Table 5, where AB-5 has a higher salt % and the concentration polarization phenomena was observed lightly and the fouling in the membrane increases sharply reducing the extract and alcohol percentages in the nal product. A new strategy should be created for compensate the system and trying to keep the quality of the product. Identifying the transport variables and operating parameters is easier to improve the required resulting qualities. As mentioned early, Eq. (1) denes the feed ux. It depends on the membrane properties, temperature of the system and the chemical composition of the solution. Moreover, the solute ux, see Eq. (4), is an indicator for the membrane eectiveness in removing salts, ethanol/ methanol from water. The solute ux is a function of the system temperature and the composition. Therefore, it is a property of the membrane itself and indirectly related to the feed pressure. For that reason, salt/ethanol rejection expresses the eectiveness of a membrane to remove salts/ethanol from the solution. Increasing the recovery raises the brine concentration and the osmotic pressure, thus decreasing the permeate ux and increasing the total dissolved solid (TDS) in the product. Since the feed ux through the RO membrane is higher than that of salt, there is an accumulation of salt on the membrane surface on the pressurized side of a membrane. This phenomenon is called concentration polarization. The increase in concentration polarization has two eects: Increases the osmotic pressure, and reducing the feed ux across the membrane. Increases the driving force of the concentration dierence across the membrane, which reduces the driving potential, increases the salt passage and gives poor product quality. All these eects increase the capital cost and the power requirements per unit of product. The above transport equations lead to the following important conclusions: Feed ow is proportional to P. Solute ow is proportional to concentration and is independent of the applied pressure. The increase in the operating pressure increases the feed ow without changing the salt ow.

dation of the beverage is neglected because the system works to low temperature. The results for all beverages are shown in Tables 25. The conclusions obtained from the rst phase of this study are: the lowest alcohol percentage obtained in all cases was 0.5%. Dierent scenarios were dened however; a reduction under 0.5% was impossible. Although the objective of this work is to produce lower-alcohol beverages, a reduction in the apparent extract and the carbohydrates content were observed when the system was working under 45 bar. The physical removal of alcohol has certainly a number of advantages for the society (healthy drinks, drunk-

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When a reverse-osmosis system is used on a commercial level, it is important to check its performance periodically. As time passes, the membrane performance deteriorates continuously due to pressure compaction and fouling. For which, its transport parameters to change and the performance of the module to decline. A low production rate, below design specications, could be an indication of membrane fouling. If the recovery is above the design specication, then the brine concentration and the osmotic pressure will increase, causing a decrease the permeate ux and an increase in dissolved solid content in the product. Since the feed ow is maintained constant during operation, the product ow must be controlled to maintain a constant recovery during operation. A gradual or rapid increase in the product conductivity is an indication of membrane fouling or mechanical damage in the membrane module, respectively (Al Shayli (1998)). Both permeate ux and conductivity are affected by pH Temperature The pH of the feed ux must be monitored and controlled for to increase the life of cellular acetate membranes by protecting them from degradation that result from hydrolysis. Hydrolysis is the reaction of cellular acetate with water to produce an alcohol and an acid. Hydrolysis depends on both pH and temperature. The minimum hydrolysis rate occurs at a pH of 4.55. See Table 6. The feed temperature has a signicant eect on the membrane performance because the beverage temperature aects the feed ux in another way. If the RO plant

is operating under an ideal condition with no fouling or scaling, feed ux will decline with time, because of compaction phenomena. Nevertheless, the compaction phenomena was not studied because the temperature was not considered in this work for avoid thermal degradation in the alcoholic beverages. The major problem in dealcoholization is to keep the quality of the nal product in a reasonable range. Studying all problems mentioned early, a procedure for the dilution of the initial AB solutions was necessary. The dissolution compensates the loss water during the process (reducing problems in the salts contents, pH) and the apparent extract was increased in a 1% (the reduction of the apparent extract in all cases was the same approximately). The results are depicted in Tables 716. The low pressures have do not been considered because the better results were obtained to high pressures. From Table 7 until 16, the results indicated that the quality of the beverages was maintained inside an acceptable range (the values of extract, salts, carbohydrates were maintained constants practically). However we recommend using avoring additives for restoring the avor. The dilution avoided the clogging of the

Table 8 Dilution of AB-1 at 50 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.7 0.6 0.6 4.4 81 1.1 2 3.5 0.5 0.5 4.7 89 1.2 3 3.6 0.5 0.5 5.1 90 1.4 4 3.6 0.5 0.6 5.9 90 1.6

Table 6 Specications of nal product from AB-5 Pressure (bar) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 35 2.7 0.9 0.6 4.4 81 1.0 40 2.7 0.8 0.6 4.5 81 1.1 45 2.7 0.5 0.6 4.5 81 1.1 50 2.1 1.0 1.1 4.0 80 0.8

Table 9 Dilution of AB-2 at 45 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.3 0.6 0.6 4.5 86 1.3 2 2.3 0.6 0.6 4.9 88 1.4 3 2.5 0.5 0.6 5.2 91 1.4 4 2.5 0.5 0.5 5.2 90 1.4

Table 7 Dilution of AB-1 at 45 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.8 0.8 0.6 4.4 81 1.1 2 3.4 0.7 0.5 4.5 86 1.1 3 3.5 0.5 0.5 5.1 90 1.4 4 3.5 0.5 0.6 5.9 90 1.6

Table 10 Dilution of AB-2 at 50 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) PH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.3 0.6 0.6 4.7 88 1.3 2 2.5 7.1 0.6 5.2 91 1.4 3 2.5 0.5 0.6 5.1 90 1.4 4 2.5 0.5 0.6 5.1 90 1.4

M.V. Pilipovik, C. Riverol / Journal of Food Engineering 69 (2005) 437441 Table 11 Dilution of AB-3 at 45 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.8 0.8 0.6 4.4 81 1.1 2 2.8 0.7 0.6 4.5 86 1.1 3 2.9 0.5 0.6 5.2 90 1.4 4 2.9 0.5 0.6 5.2 90 1.4 Table 14 Dilution of AB-4 at 50 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.8 0.8 0.6 4.4 81 1.1 2 2.8 0.5 0.7 4.1 88 0.9 3 2.8 0.5 0.6 4.1 89 0.9

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4 2.8 0.5 0.6 4.1 90 0.9

Table 12 Dilution of AB-3 at 50 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.8 0.8 0.6 4.4 81 1.1 2 2.9 0.5 0.6 4.8 88 1.3 3 2.9 0.5 0.6 5.2 90 1.4 4 2.9 0.5 0.6 5.2 90 1.4

Table 15 Dilution of AB-5 at 45 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.7 0.8 0.6 4.4 81 1.8 2 2.8 0.6 0.6 4.8 87 1.5 3 2.8 0.5 0.8 5.7 90 1.6 4 2.8 0.5 0.6 5.8 90 1.6

Table 13 Dilution of AB-4 at 45 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.7 0.7 0.6 4.4 81 1.1 2 2.7 0.6 0.6 4.8 88 1.3 3 2.8 0.5 0.5 4.1 90 0.9 4 2.8 0.5 0.5 5.2 90 1.4 Table 16 Dilution of AB-5 at 50 bar Water compensation (%) Apparent extract (P) Alcohol (%) Turbidity (EBC) pH Carbohydrates (%) Salts and minerals (%) 1 2.7 0.7 0.6 4.4 81 1.3 2 2.8 0.5 0.6 5.5 89 1.5 3 2.8 0.5 0.6 5.5 90 1.4 4 2.8 0.5 0.6 5.6 90 1.4

membrane and the feed ux was practically constant along the set of experiments. power are incremented considerably thus that it is not economically feasible to large-scale.

4. Conclusion This contribution describes the most relevant issues associated to reverse osmosis systems. Although some controversy surrounds this subject, we recommend dilute the initial alcoholic solution because it can keep the levels of the carbohydrate contents, extract percentage and salts in an acceptable range without alter the avor and quality of the product. The production of low-alcohol beverages require RO units working at high pressure such that production costs and consumption of

References
Al Shayli, K. (1998). Modeling, simulation, and optimization of largescale commercial desalination plants. PhD Thesis, University of Virginia. Stein, W. (1993). Dealcoholization of beer. Technical Quarterly, Master Brewer Association of America, 30(2), 5457. Tan, S.-j., Xiao, Z.-y., & Li, L. (2003). Experimental research on dealcoholization of wine by pervaporation. Fine Chemicals, 20(2), 6971.