Effect of hydraulic pressure and electric field on electro-microfiltration in the wine-brewery industry

The present study investigates the respective impact of dissolved constituents in the fermentation, suspended solids, and particles on the purification of fermentation broth by an electro-microfiltration membrane process. Microfiltration by these constituents induced sharp initial flux declines, the overall membrane resistance was increased by fouling. The hydraulic electro-filtration led to a drastic improvement of the filtration, and the filtration time was thereby reduced. The electro-filtration apparatus serves as an interesting alternative to the cross-flow filtration. Therefore, experimental results were discussed with solution of particles recovered from centrifugation and with permeates from microfiltration experiments.