Effects of by‐products of fermentation of banana pseudostem on ethanol separation by pervaporation

Abstract

In this work, we performed recovery of ethanol from a fermentation broth of banana pseudostem by pervaporation (PV) as a lower‐energy‐cost alternative to traditional separation processes such as distillation. As real fermentation systems generally contain by‐products, it was investigated the effects of different components from the fermentation broth of banana pseudostem on PV performance for ethanol recovery through commercial flat sheet polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) membrane. The experiments were compared to a binary solution (ethanol/water) to determine differences in the results due to the presence of fermentation by‐products. A real fermented broth of banana pseudostem was also used as feed for the PV experiments. Seven by‐products from fermented broth were identified: propanol, isobutanol, methanol, isoamyl alcohol, 1‐pentanol, acetic acid, and succinic acid. Moreover, the residual sugar content of 3.02 g/L1 was obtained. The presence of methanol showed the best results for total permeate flux (0.1626 kg·m−2·h−1) and ethanol permeate flux (0.0391 kg·m−2·h−1) during PV at 25°C and 3 wt% ethanol, also demonstrated by the selectivity and enrichment factor. The lowest total fluxes of permeate were observed in the experiments containing the acids. Better permeance of 0.1171 from 0.0796 kg·m−2·h−1 and membrane selectivity of 9.77 from 9.30 were obtained with real fermentation broth than with synthetic solutions, possibly due to the presence of by‐products in the multicomponent mixtures, which contributed to ethanol permeation. The results of this work indicate that by‐products influence pervaporation of ethanol with hydrophobic flat sheet membrane produced from the fermented broth of banana pseudostem.

Bacterial Nanocellulose Derived from Banana Leaf Extract: Yield and Variation Factors

“…Different studies demonstrate the use of this biomass to obtain (i) bioenergy, such as bioethanol [32][33][34][35][36], and biogas [37,38], and (ii) compounds of interest, such as biofertilizers [39,40], lactic acid [41], activated carbon [42], biopolymers [43], bacterial nanocellulose [44], among other compounds of industrial interest. In this sense, banana leaves can be used as a raw material for obtaining different bioproducts.…”

Separation techniques for manufacturing fruit spirits: From traditional distillation to advanced pervaporation process

“…Pervaporation is an emerging technology that combines the processes of “evaporation” and “permeation” to achieve molecular separation, which has been applied in various fields, including ethanol upgrading and dehydration (Castro‐Muñoz, Buera‐Gonzalez, et al., 2019), desalination of seawater (Castro‐Muñoz, 2020), chemical purification (Castro‐Muñoz, Galiano, de la Iglesia, et al., 2019; Castro‐Muñoz, Galiano, et al., 2020), biological and chemical reactions facilitation (such as esterification, oxidation, hydrogenation, etherification, aldolization, and ketonization) (Castro‐Muñoz et al., 2018; Castro‐Muñoz, Galiano, & Figoli, 2019), nonalcoholic beverage production (Castro‐Muñoz, 2019b), and the separation of fragrances and essences (Castro‐Muñoz et al., 2023), as well as in the field of winemaking. For example, pervaporation technology has been applied to separate alcohol from complex matrix fermentation liquids, such as banana (Bello et al., 2014), banana pseudostem (Linzmeyer et al., 2019), and sweet sorghum fermentation liquids (Kaewkannetra et al., 2011). Furthermore, the combination of pervaporation technology, which separates ethanol, aroma compounds, and water, has been demonstrated for the production of low‐alcohol beverages (Castro‐Muñoz, 2019b).…”

Enhanced glycerol dehydration of pervaporation cross‐linkedPVAmembranes modified byVUV/UV‐Ctreatments

“…The process promotes the evaporation of the permeate liquid, which is subsequently recovered by condensation or crystallization. PV is competitive compared to other techniques in several areas, such as the separation of azeotropic solutions, 7 water‐organic mixtures, 8 treatment of effluents, 9 organic solvent dehydration, 10 benzene/cyclohexane separation, 11 ethanol from banana waste, 12,13 and purification of bioreactor products 14 . The coupling of PV modules to chemical reactors is a potential expansion of this technique, leading to chemical equilibrium displacement through the removal of products 15 .…”