The aim of this work was the study on the separation of soybean oil/n-butane mixtures using a commercial hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane (50 kDa). Oil/n-butane mixtures with mass ratios of 1:1 and 1:3 (wt), with the feed pressures of 5, 7 and 10 bar and transmembrane pressure of 1 bar were studied. Rejections of oil between 21 to 97.2%, oil fluxes between 0.04 and 0.98 kg/m² h and n-butane fluxes between 4 and 46 kg/m² h were observed, strongly influenced by the feed concentration. The increase in oil/n-butane mass ratio caused an increase in oil rejection and a decrease in the permeate flux of oil for most assays. The increase in the operating pressure caused an increase in oil flux and a consequent decrease in oil rejection. No degradation was observed in the membrane module during the operation with this non-aqueous feed stream, as confirmed by integrity tests.

A highly permeable composite hollow-fibre membrane developed for air separation was used in a membrane aerated biofilm reactor (MABR). The composite membrane consisted of a porous support layer covered with a thin dense film, which was responsible for oxygen enrichment of the permeate stream. Besides oxygen enrichment capability, dense membranes overcome major operational problems that occur when using porous membranes for oxygen transfer to biofilms. Air flow rate and oxygen partial pressure inside the fibres were the variables used to adjust the oxygen transfer rate. The membrane aerated biofilm reactor was operated with hydraulic retention times (HRT) ranging from 1 to 4 hours. High organic load removal rates, like 6.5 kg.m-3.d-1, were achieved due to oxygen transfer rates as high as 107 kg.m-3.d-1. High COD removals, with improved oxygen transfer efficiency, indicate that a MABR is a compact alternative to the conventional activated sludge process and that the selected membrane is suitable for further applications.

In this work, the separation of refined soybean oil/n-hexane mixtures was investigated using a commercial hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane 50 kDa. Three alcohols with different chain lengths were tested for the conditioning of the membrane; n-propyl alcohol showed the highest n-hexane permeate flux after conditioning. There was a decrease in the rejection and an increase in permeate flux over time. This behavior may be related to swelling and membrane plasticization by the oil. Rejections from 10.0 to 28.7% and total permeate fluxes from 12.2 to 65.3 kg/m²h were observed. An increase in the oil/n-hexane mass ratio and the pressure caused an increase in the rejection and permeate total flux for most assays. No degradation was observed in the membrane module.

There are numerous examples of the importance of small molecule migration in polymeric materials, such as in drying polymeric packing, controlled drug delivery, formation of films, and membrane separation, etc. The Chapman-Enskog kinetic theory of hard-sphere fluids with the Weeks-Chandler-Andersen effective hard-sphere diameter (Enskog-WCA) has been the most fruitful in diffusion studies of simple fluids and mixtures. In this work, the ability of the Enskog-WCA model to describe the temperature and concentration dependence of the mutual diffusion coefficient, D, for a polystyrene-toluene system was evaluated. Using experimental diffusion data, two polymer model approaches and three mixing rules for the effective hard-sphere diameter were tested. Some procedures tested resulted in models that are capable of correlating the experimental data with the refereed system well for a solvent mass fraction greater than 0.3.

Sterilization of fermentation medium involving heat may result in undesirable chemical reactions that alter nutrient concentration and yield products, which interfere in the fermentation performance. Sterilization of heat-sensitive compounds usually involves separate sterilizations of carbon source and nutrient solution. Membrane separation processes are an alternative to thermal processes, as they have many advantages such as the possibility of continuous and modular operation and the use of moderate temperatures. In this context, the objective of this work was the preparation of hollow-fiber membranes and the design of modules suitable for continuous sterilization of fermentation medium. The membrane with the best performance had a maximum pore diameter of 0.2 mu m and a permeability of 42.9 L/m².bar.h for a glucose/peptone/yeast extract medium. A module with 0.26 m² of permeation area was built with these membranes. This module was able to provide a permeate flow rate of 2.2 L/h using a pressure difference of 0.2 bar. The collected permeate was completely sterile, thus confirming the efficiency of this process.

The Vrentas/Duda proposal for the diffusion of polymer-solvent systems, which is based on the free-volume theory, was employed in correlating and predicting mutual diffusion coefficients in highly concentrated polymer solutions. It has been observed that the predictive version of the model is capable of qualitatively representing the experimental data, while the use of an adjustable parameter greatly improves the performance of the model. The systems studied were poly(vinyl) acetate-toluene and Neoprene-acetone, and a comparison between experimental data and calculated values from the Vrentas/Duda model is reported. A new experimental apparatus based on the sorption technique was built to provide reliable diffusivity data on the Neoprene-acetone system.

During hollow fiber spinning many variables are involved whose effects are still not completely clear. However, its understanding is of great interest because the control of these variables may originate membranes with the desired morphologies and physical properties. In this work, the phase inversion process induced by the immersion precipitation technique was applied to prepare hollow fibers membranes. It was verified that some of the variables involved, can promote a visco-elastic polymer solution expansion, called die-swell phenomenon, which is undesired since it may lead to low reproducibility of the permeation properties. The effects of the distance between spinneret and precipitation bath, the bore liquid composition, and the polymer solution composition were analyzed and discussed in order to avoid this phenomenon. According to the results, it was verified that the parameters investigated might promote a delay precipitation, which restrained the visco-elastic expansion.

In the present work polyurethane membranes obtained from different polyester/MDI-based polymers were used to separate benzene/n-hexane mixtures by pervaporation. In pervaporation experiments, with a 50% wt feed at room temperature, permeate fluxes in the range of 0.3 to 3.2 Kg/m2h (10 <FONT FACE="Symbol">m</font>m membrane thickness) and selectivity in the range of 3.8 to 5.6 were obtained. The permeate was always enriched in benzene. Taking into account the compromise between flux and selectivity, the best performance membrane was selected for complementary sorption and pervaporation experiments. Results show that selectivity increases and the permeation flux decreases when the benzene concentration in the feed decreases. In the present application, results also show that sorption is the main factor for selectivity. Using the distillation azeotropic mixture as feed, almost no influence of temperature on selectivity was observed in the range of 25oC to 56oC. The permeate flux increases seven-fold, while selectivity remains constant near 8.0.

This paper presents an enzymatic process for sorbitol and gluconic acid production using cells of Zymomonas mobilis permeabilized with CTAB. Equimolar solutions of glucose and fructose (from 96.0 to 422.2 g/L) were used. In a batch reactor, conversions of 97% were attained after 15 to 20 hours of reaction. The effect of the initial concentration of the substrates was evaluated in experiments using 20% more and 20% less glucose than fructose. It was observed that the reaction performed with more fructose reached completion faster and with a higher value of conversion

This work deals with enzymatic hydrolysis of babassu oil by immobilized lipase in membrane reactors of two types: a flat plate nylon membrane and a hollow fiber polyetherimide membrane on which surface commercial lipases were immobilized by adsorption. Experiments conducted in the hollow fiber reactor showed that during the immobilization step enzyme adsorption followed a sigmoid model, with a maximum adsorption equilibrium time of 30 minutes. Concerning the hydrodynamics of the liquid phases, the results indicate that main diffusional limitations occurred in the organic phase. The amount of protein immobilized and the maximum productivity were, respectively, 1.97 g/m2 and 44 <FONT FACE="Symbol">m</font> molH+/m2.s for the hollow fiber and 1.2 g/m2 and 56 <FONT FACE="Symbol">m</font> molH+/m2.s for the flat and plate membrane. Both reactors were able to perform the hydrolysis reaction, while maintaining absolute separation of the two phases by the membrane