Basic principles of membrane technology Advantages of membrane technologies in the food and beverage industry Membrane types used in the food and beverage industry and industrial scale applications Membrane technologies are widely used in the food and beverage industry, especially in the production and processing of milk and dairy products, fruit juices and alcoholic beverages.Figure A. Basic scheme of a membrane process.Purpose: This review article includes detailed information about the advantages of membrane technologies used in the food and beverage industry compared to traditional methods, the basic principles of membrane technologies, membrane types, common application areas, and studies reported in the literature.
Theory and Methods:The uses of (i) membrane separation, (ii) evaporation and (iii) freeze-concentration techniques are investigated for purification, separation and concentrated product preparation in the food and beverage industry.
Results:Membrane processes are a more advantageous method than traditional methods to obtain high quality and cost-effective products in the food and beverage industry.
Conclusion:The application of membrane processes as an alternative to traditional separation, purification, and concentrated product methods for "sustainable production" and "zero waste approach" in the food and beverage industry is a very popular and growing subject. Pressure-driven membrane processes, namely MF, UF, NF, and RO, lead to effective separation of components with a large range of particle sizes. Hence, this paves the way to find a wide range of membrane applications in the food and beverage industry. In addition, since membrane processes are more economical in terms of energy consumption compared to traditional techniques, it is predicted that their use will have an increasing trend.