Separation of furans and carboxylic acids from sugars in dilute acid rice straw hydrolyzates by nanofiltration

This work studied the concentration of hydrolyzates obtained from dilute acid hydrolysis of rice straw using nanofiltration (NF). In order to minimize the Donnan exclusion effect of the membrane, the hydrolyzate solution was controlled at low pH value. Negative retentions of both furans and carboxylic acids were observed. The maximum separation factor of acetic acid over xylose was 49, while the maximum separation factor of acetic acid over arabinose was 52, when the system was operated at pH 2.9 and an applied pressure of 24.5-34.3 bar. The separation factors of inhibitors over glucose became infinity due to the complete retention of glucose. The separation performance decreased when the operating temperature was increased from 25 to 40 °C. The flux deterioration was recovered by flushing with 0.01 N of NaOH and water.