Toray develops new membrane module to cut emissions

Toray Industries, Inc. has developed and begun supplying samples of a new hollow fibre ultrafiltration membrane module for food and beverage manufacturing and biotechnology purification and concentration processes.

The module can save energy and contribute to carbon neutrality by attaining CO2 emissions more than 80% lower than those from the food production sector's conventional thermal concentration processes.

Toray has leveraged the high-strength hollow fibre membrane technology cultivated in water treatment to develop the new module, which employs an outside-in type crossflow filtration design. Crossflow filtration is a common technique, through which feed passes parallel to membrane surface and prevents turbidity from accumulating. Pressure losses from this design are just one-third those of inside-out type that food companies normally use. It is thus possible to filter and concentrate highly turbid or viscous liquids, which is challenging with regular membranes. Toray's new module also features large membrane area technology which reduces the number of modules needed, halving space requirements and potentially lowering cleaning and equipment costs by more than 20%. The module performs well in steam (125°C) and hot water (90°C) environments to enable thermal sterilisation and high temperature filtration.