Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Corresponding author. Tel.: +66 2218 5515; fax: +66 2254 4314.
E-mail address: pchidphong@hotmail.com (C. Pradistsuwana).
Journal of Food Engineering 105 (2011) 7378
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Food Engineering
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er. com/ l ocat e/ j f oodeng
area. In a dead-end ltration process, the resistance to ow offered
by the cake layer is dominant, and typically increases proportion-
ally with the cake thickness (Foley, 2006; Lodge et al., 2004). Under
constant pressure conditions, permeate ow is dependent upon
the pressure differential (DP) across the cake and expressed as:
J
1
A
dV
dt
DP
laCV
A
R
m
1
At constant pressure:
1
J
laC
ADP
V
lR
m
DP
2
Thus, it is possible to determine the specic cake resistance at a
given pressure drop from the slope of a plot of 1/J versus V (Chud-
acek and Fane, 1984; Foley, 2006). The specic cake resistance may
vary with transmembrane pressure, thus affecting its performance
(Chudacek and Fane, 1984; Kumar and Roy, 2008; McCarthy et al.,
1998; Tanaka et al., 1994). This can be described by the power-law
equation:
a a
0
DP
n
3
The cake is incompressible for n = 0 and is more compressible
for higher values of n. Specic cake resistance is dependent on sev-
eral factors including particle shape, size distribution, porosity, and
particle density (Endo and Alonso, 2001), as well as suspended sol-
ids concentration (Lee et al., 2003b; Mhurchu and Foley, 2006; Ta-
naka et al., 2001).
Pretreatment of feed prior to microltration can enhance micro-
ltration performance. Such treatments involve different separa-
tion methods and affect the suspended solids concentration,
particle size or distribution of the feed. As the use of microltration
for clarication and cold pasteurization of rice wine is promising,
this research aims to study the effects of pretreatment methods
on rice wine characteristics and microltration performance. Fil-
tration rate and specic cake resistance are particle size depen-
dent, however, the quantitative evaluation of particle size
dependence of these two parameters is limited. Therefore, this re-
search was designed to quantitate the effect of particle size and
size distribution on specic cake resistance. This includes studying
the inuence of total suspended solids, particle size and its distri-
bution on permeate ux and specic cake resistance.
2. Material and methods
2.1. Preparation of pretreated rice wine
The fermented liquor of rice wine was prepared using a tradi-
tional batch fermentation process. Thai glutinous rice (Double
Horses Brand, Thailand) was purchased at a grocery in Atlanta,
Georgia. The rice was soaked in water for approximately 23 h,
then steamed for 0.5 h. Once cooled, it was mixed with 50% w/
wdeionized water and 2% w/wstarter culture (Shanghai Yeast Ball,
Zhenxiang Yeastball Company, Macau, China). The mixture was
stored in 20 L glass jars at 30 C. After 4 days, deionized water
was added to adjust the soluble solids to 24Brix and the contain-
ers were kept under anaerobic conditions for a total of 10 days. The
fermented liquor was passed through a 10 mesh sieve to remove
pieces larger than 1.7 mm. The liquid was then pretreated prior
to microltration using three different separation methods: ltra-
tion through cheesecloth (RW
f
), sedimentation (RW
s
), or centrifu-
gation (RW
c
). The rst treatment group was poured through two
layers of 18 mesh cheesecloth. The second group was allowed to
sediment for 3 h before decanting the clear liquid. The nal group
was subjected to centrifugation at 3000g for 30 min (Universal 32R
Hettich, Tuttlingen, Germany). The pretreated rice wines were kept
at 3 C prior to analysis.
The pretreated rice wines were analyzed for pH, alcohol con-
tent, total soluble solids content, titratable acidity, total suspended
solids concentration, and particle size distribution. The alcohol
content was measured with an Ebulliometer (Dujardin-Salleron,
Arcueil, France), and total soluble solids content with a refractom-
eter (Atago, Tokyo, Japan). Titratable acidity was determined by
titration with 0.1 N NaOH standard according to AOAC Method
962.12 (AOAC, 1995) and expressed as grams citric acid per
100 g sample. To determine total suspended solids concentration,
a sample of known weight was ltered through a weighed mem-
brane (0.22 lm Nitrocellulose, Millipore, Bedford, MA, USA). The
cake was dried in a hot air oven (model ED, Winder, Tuttlingen,
Germany) at 105 C for 24 h. The dried cake was weighed and total
suspended solids concentration was calculated. Particle size, in
term of volume-weighted mean (D
v
), and particle size distribution
of the samples were determined with a laser diffraction particle
size analyzer (Mastersizer 2000, Malvern, UK).
2.2. Preparation of rice wine suspensions having different particle size
distributions
Rice wine suspensions having three different particle size distri-
butions in the range of 120, 1200, and 1400 lm were prepared.
These samples were obtained by ltration, sedimentation, and cen-
trifugation of the fermented liquor. The fermented liquor was l-
tered through a 35 mesh standard sieve (Retsh, Haan, Germany)
to remove particles larger than 400 lm and 200 mesh standard
sieves to remove particles larger than 200 lm. Sedimentation
of the liquor for 3 h produced samples with particles smaller than
20 lm.
To vary solids concentration, each supernatant was centrifuged
at 3600g and 25 C for 30 min. The supernatant was microltered
using a 0.45 lm cellulose acetate membrane (Sartorius, Goettin-
Nomenclature
A membrane area (m
2
)
C concentration of suspended solids in a feed samples
(% w/w)
D
v
volume-weighted mean (lm)
J permeate ux (m
3
m
2
s
1
)
n compressibility index
DP transmembrane pressure (Pa)
R
m
membrane resistance (m
1
)
t ltration time (s)
V permeate volume (m
3
)
W weight fraction of suspended solids dened as w
i
/w
j
w
i
weight of particles larger than 45 lm (kg)
w
j
weight of particles smaller than 45 lm (kg)
Greek symbol
a specic cake resistance (m kg
1
)
a
o
constant (m kg
1
)
l dynamic viscosity of permeate (Pa s)
74 J. Sripui et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 105 (2011) 7378
gen, Germany). The suspended solids were resuspended in the
microltered supernatant. Then each rice wine suspension was di-
luted with the microltered supernatant to obtain suspended sol-
ids concentration in the range of 0.041.00% w/w. The total
suspended solids concentration, particle size and its distribution
were analyzed as described above. The permeate viscosity was
measured using a CannonFenske viscometer (No. 150, Kimble
Glass, Vineland, NJ, USA) following AOAC 974.07 (2005), while per-
meate density was determined with a pycnometer (25 ml, Kimble
Glass, Vineland, NJ, USA) following AOAC 920.56 (2005).
2.3. Preparation of rice wine suspensions having different weight
fractions of suspended solids
The rice wine suspensions having particle size distributions in
the range of 11000 lm were used to obtain ve levels of weight
fraction of suspended solids (W). These samples were prepared by
ltration through 35, and then 325 mesh standard sieves (Retsh,
Haan, Germany). The retentate contained suspended solids with
particle sizes in the range of 45500 lm. The ltrate contained sus-
pended solids of particle size less than 45 lm. Both fractions were
centrifuged at 3600g and 25 C for 30 min. The supernatant was
microltered. The sediment was resuspended in the microltered
supernatant and the total suspended solids determined. The sus-
pension was diluted with sufcient microltered supernatant to
obtain a suspended solids concentration of 1% w/w. The suspension
obtained from the ltrate was mixed with the suspension obtained
from retentate to obtain 0:100, 75:25, 50:50, 25:75, and 100:0
weight ratios. Thus, the weight fraction of suspended solids having
size larger than 45 lmwere 0, 0.25, 0.05, 0.75, or 1.00, respectively.
Each mixture was diluted with the microltered supernatant to ob-
tain the total suspended solids concentration of 0.2, 0.5, and 1.0% w/
w. The total suspended solids concentration and particle size distri-
bution were determined as described previously.
2.4. Microltration experiments
The microltration experiments were conducted using dead-
end ltration in a 2 L batch stainless-steel microltration unit
(Amicon Model 2000, Millipore, USA) mounted with 0.45 lm
hydrophilic polyvinylidene diuoride (PVDF) membranes (Dura-
pore