Sugar Syrup Concentration Using Reverse Osmosis Membranes

Abstract

AbstractIn sugar manufacturing industries, initially dilute syrup is obtained from the cane sugar or beetroot, which should be concentrated. In many factories, sugar syrup concentration is carried out using evaporation. This process has two main problems. Firstly, it consumes a huge amount of energy due to high latent heat of water and secondly, heating may decompose the sugar molecules resulting in low‐quality and dark‐colored sugar. Low energy consuming reverse osmosis may be employed for concentrating sugar syrup without decomposing the molecules, resulting in high‐quality sugar with low cost. In this study different commercial reverse osmosis membranes (DS, DSII, PVD, FT30, BW30) and one nanofiltration membrane (NF45) were used for sugar syrup concentration. The results show that nanofiltration NF45 membrane has no effect on sugar syrup concentration. The rejections of sugar using DSII and PVD reverse osmosis membranes vary between 23 % and 33 % for different operating conditions. DS membrane rejected around 10 % of the sugar molecules in best conditions. FT30 membrane initially showed better performance (55 %). However, the rejection was decreased during time (minimum 7 %). For BW30 membrane, the rejection of sugar was better (60 %) compared to the other membranes used in this work. For two‐stage processes (i.e. the permeate of the first stage used as a feed for the second stage) the highest rejection (88 %) was obtained.