Research Article
Deshmukh S.K, Sapkal V.S an
Abstract
In this work Membrane Distillation is applied to concentrate orange Juice. The orange juice model solution used in this study was prepared with sucrose pro-analysis grade, citral and ethyl butyrate, 98%. The experiments were performed on a flat sheet module using sucrose solution as feeds. The concentration of a sucrose solution, used as a model fruit juice was carried out in a direct contact membrane distillation using hydrophobic PTFE (Polytetrafluoroethylene) membrane of pore size 0.2μm and porosity 70%. Surface modification of PTFE membrane has been carried out by treating membrane with alcohol and water solution to make it hydrophilic and then hydrophobicity was regained by drying. The influences of the feed temperature, feed concentration, flow rate, operating time on the permeate flux were studied for treated and non treated membrane. In this work treated and non treated membrane were compared in terms of water flux, Within the tested range, MD with surface modified membrane the water flux has been significantly improved by treating the membrane surface.