Novel membranes for the valorisation of side streams in the pulp and food industry

The initiation project between Laboratory of Membrane Processes at the Institute of Physical Organic Chemistry of the National Academy of Science of Belarus and the Membrane Group in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Lund University focuses on the development and testing of novel membranes. The membranes will be developed by Group in Belarus using polyelectrolyte solutions to increase hydrophilicity of membranes and thus reduce membrane fouling and the need for membrane cleaning. The Group in Sweden will test and benchmark the membranes to commercial available ones with regard to two pre-selected industrial relevant side stream for the pulp and food industry in both countries - concentration hemicellulose from thermo-mechanical pulping process water and protein recovery from potato fruit water. These results obtained should support the Group in Belarus to evolve their membranes further. The results from this research will be disseminated in joint presentations and articles. The project includes the joint participation in the conference on "Fouling and Cleaning in Food Processing" to be held in Lund and an advanced PhD Course in Belarus. The overall aim of initiation project is to develop a long-term collaboration between the two partners in the field of membrane research and development.