Influence of gas sparging on clarification of pineapple wine by microfiltration

A microfiltration process with a tubular ceramic membrane was applied for clarification of pineapple wine. The process was operated with the membrane pore size of 0.2 μm at transmembrane pressure of 2 bar and crossflow velocity of 2.0 m/s. The effects of gas sparging on permeate flux, fouling and quality of clarified wine were studied. It was found that a relatively low gas sparging rate could increase permeate flux up to 138%. Further increase of the gas sparging rate did not improve permeate flux compared with that without gas sparging. Gas sparging affected the density of cake layer. Increasing gas sparging rate led to an increase in specific cake resistance. It was observed that increasing gas sparging rate could reduce reversible fouling rather than irreversible fouling. The turbidity of pineapple wine was reduced and a clear product with bright yellow color was obtained after microfiltration. The negative effect of gas sparging which caused a loss of alcohol content in the wine was also observed.