Beer dealcoholization by Hybrid Nanofiltration/Distillation Process

FIGUEROA PAREDES, D. A.; SÁNCHEZ, RAMIRO JULIÁN; LAORETANI, DANIELA SOLEDAD; ESPINOSA, JOSÉ

Buenos Aires

Congreso; WCCE11, 11avo Congreso Mundial de Ingeniería Química; 2023

Asociación Argentina de Ingenieros Químicos

In this paper, the conceptual design of a process consisting of a dealcoholization task via nanofiltration followed by a permeate valorization task via distillation is deeply investigated for the case of a lager beer. For the nanofiltration task operated in a diafiltration mode, the recycling of a permeate cut as diluent in subsequent diafiltration batches is proposed and analyzed. To this end, we resorted to conceptual models of each operation. The analysis is enhanced with an economic comparison at an industrial scale between the proposed variant with that obtained in a previous work. High agreement was found between experimental results of diafiltration runs performed at our laboratory with model calculations which includes the permeate recycle. From mass and energy balances of the hybrid process for the scaled-up designs it is observed an appreciable reduction of the steam and cooling water consumption by distillation when the permeate is recycled. Economically, the saving in utilities consumption was counterbalanced by the cost for annual membrane replacement.