Comparative study of ultrasound-assisted and conventional stirred dead-end microfiltration of grape pomace extracts

Ultrasound (US) was used to facilitate dead-end microfiltration (MF) of grape pomace (GP) extracts. The effects of ultrasonic power, sonication cycle time and ultrasonic probe height on filtration behaviour were investigated. Ultrasonic irradiation had a strong impact on the MF processes, especially with high output power and continuous mode. A comparative study of US-assisted and stirred MF was performed. The energy consumption and liquid flux enhancement of the two filtration systems were compared. Under the same dissipation power, the flux enhancement is much higher for the US-assisted MF. A correlation equation for predicting permeate flux was derived from resistance-in-series model. The flux predictions were confirmed with the experimental results. Finally, the characteristics of permeate after US-assisted and stirred filtration were evaluated. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.