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Diafiltration

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Encyclopedia of Membranes

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Diafiltration (also called membrane filtration in dilution mode) is an operation mode of a pressure-driven membrane filtration process in which a diluant (pure solvent) is added into the process liqueur in order to facilitate the separation of macrosolutes from microsolutes.

Diafiltration may be performed either in batch (discontinuous) or continuous processing mode as schematically shown in Fig. 1. In both processing modes, diluant is added to and permeate is withdrawn from the system. The fundamental difference between the two configurations is that in batch operation, the retentate stream is recycled into the feed tank where it is mixed with the content of the reservoir and with fresh diluant. The concentration of membrane-permeable microsolutes in the feed tank decreases over time, and the final product is obtained directly in the feed reservoir when operation is terminated. In contrast, continuous processing is performed in a flow-through manner with both permeate and retentate...

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References

Further Reading

  • Beaton NC, Klinkowski PR (1983) Industrial ultrafiltration design and application of diafiltration processes. J Sep Process Technol 4(2):1–10

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  • Dutré B, Trägárdh G (1994) Macrosolute-microsolute separation by ultrafiltration: a review of diafiltration processes and applications. Desalination 95:227–267

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  • Madsen RF (2001) Design of sanitary and sterile UF- and diafiltration plants. Sep Purif Technol 22–23:79–87

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Food Engineering, Institue of Bioengineering and Process Engineering, Szent Istvan University, Menesi st 44, H-1118, Budapest, Hungary

    Zoltán Kovács

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  1. Zoltán Kovács
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Correspondence to Zoltán Kovács .

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  1. Institute on Membrane Technology, National Research Council of Italy, ITM-CNR, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

    Enrico Drioli

  2. Institute on Membrane Technology, National Research Council of Italy, ITM-CNR, University of Calabria, Rende, Italy

    Lidietta Giorno

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© 2015 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Kovács, Z. (2015). Diafiltration. In: Drioli, E., Giorno, L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Membranes. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40872-4_171-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-40872-4_171-5

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  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-40872-4

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