Modeling of the separation of inhibitory components from pretreated rice straw hydrolysate by nanofiltration membranes

► Effective removal of inhibitors and concentration of sugars in rice straw hydrolysate. ► High separation factor using 150 Da molecular weight cut off nanofiltration membranes. ► The Donnan steric pore flow model adequate for membrane transport characterization. ► Separation factor of 3 for acetic acid over glucose and xylose and 7 over cellobiose. ► Volume concentration ratio of 4 increased concentration of xylose, glucose, arabinose and cellobiose by 93-151%.