Osmosis plant material nature

The nature of the plant material subjected to osmotic dehydration is the key point for both modeling and optimizing the osmosis in itself and as a pretreatment to further processing. The same osmotic medium, applied to different raw materials, under identical process conditions causes substantially different rates of dehydration and solute uptake. Data on these findings were reviewed previously (Lazarides et al., 1999 Torreggiani, 1995) and have been confirmed by recent research. 

Generally, a distinction can be made between membrane bioreactors based on cells performing a desired conversion and processes based on enzymes. In ceU-based processes, bacteria, plant and mammalian cells are used for the production of (fine) chemicals, pharmaceuticals and food additives or for the treatment of waste streams. Enzyme-based membrane bioreactors are typically used for the degradation of natural polymeric materials Hke starch, cellulose or proteins or for the resolution of optically active components in the pharmaceutical, agrochemical, food and chemical industry [50, 51]. In general, only ultrafiltration (UF) or microfiltration (MF)-based processes have been reported and little is known on the application of reverse osmosis (RO) or nanofiltration (NF) in membrane bioreactors. Additionally, membrane contactor systems have been developed, based on micro-porous polyolefin or teflon membranes [52-55]. 

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