Membrane‐Based Conditioning of an Innovative Oil‐Based Preservative for Food Technology

Demulsification of emulsions is of great interest for industrial applications. For developing a new, alternative preservation process, investigations are conducted for separating a mixture of water and an oil‐based preservative by membrane technology. Using a water‐in‐oil emulsion, the conventional membrane separation with hydrophobic membranes does not show a reasonable result. It was found that the oil‐based preservative leads to a hydrophilization of the membrane by its amphipathic character. Subsequently, a possible separation with a hydrophilic membrane system as a coalescing system was investigated. Different parametric studies were performed. The efficiency of the coalescence depends on the membrane material, the pore size, the transmembrane pressure, and the temperature during membrane passage as well. Best results so far have been achieved by using a polyethersulfone membrane with a pore size of 0.6 μm.