Desalination 148 (2002) 111–114 Presented at the International Congress on Membranes and Membrane Processes (ICOM), Toulouse, France, July 7–12, 2002. 0011-9164/02/$– See front matter © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved *Corresponding author. Hollow fibre modules for orange juice aroma recovery using pervaporation Andrew Shepherd a , Alberto Claudio Habert b* , Cristiano P. Borges c Chemical Engineering Program /COPPE, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, P.O.Box 68.502, 21.945-970 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Tel./Fax +55 (212) 5628301/300; email habert@peq.coppe.ufrj.br Received 1 February 2002; accepted 31 March 2002 Abstract The use of poly (dimethyl siloxane) PDMS hollow fibres was investigated in orange juice aroma recovery. Modules for pervaporation were designed and built for this purpose, scrutinized with binary ester-water feeds and compared to other module geometries using experimental enrichment factors and mass transfer coefficient values. Operational variables tested for the aroma separation included feed flow rate and aroma feed concentration. Further experimental runs were carried out with an industrial multicomponent feed consisting of an aqueous orange juice by-product. The results show the good potential of the modules for dilute aroma recovery. Keywords: Pervaporation; Hollow fibres modules; Aroma; Orange juice 1. Introduction The use of membrane technology in the food industry has increased dramatically in the last decade. Pervaporation separations have been analysed for the recovery of natural occurring aromas and have the advantages of being favoured by the international food legislation, which prohibits recovery methods other than physical separations [1]. In addition, since many of the aroma compounds are sensitive to high temp- eratures, pervaporation may offer an effective way for a selective recovery with reduced loss of aroma since it can operate at mild temperatures. Most published research in aroma concentration was carried out using commercial composite poly (dimethyl siloxane), PDMS membranes in the plate and frame geometry, namely Pervap 1060 or Pervap 1070 which contains incorporated