Integration of Nanofiltration and Reverse Osmosis Technologies in Polyphenols Recovery Schemes from Winery and Olive Mill Wastes by Aqueous-Based Processing

Abstract

More sustainable waste management in the winery and olive oil industries has become a major challenge. Therefore, waste valorization to obtain value-added products (e.g., polyphenols) is an efficient alternative that contributes to circular approaches and sustainable environmental protection. In this work, an integration scheme was purposed based on sustainable extraction and membrane separation processes, such as nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), for the recovery of polyphenols from winery and olive mill wastes. Membrane processes were evaluated in a closed-loop system and with a flat-sheet membrane configuration (NF270, NF90, and Duracid as NF membranes, and BW30LE as RO membrane). The separation and concentration efficiency were evaluated in terms of the total polyphenol content (TPC), and by polyphenol families (hydroxybenzoic acids, hydroxycinnamic acids, and flavonoids), using high-performance liquid chromatography. The water trans-membrane flux was dependent on the trans-membrane pressure for the NF and RO processes. NF90 membrane rejected around 91% of TPC for the lees filters extracts while NF270 membrane rejected about 99% of TPC for the olive pomace extracts. Otherwise, RO membranes rejected more than 99.9% of TPC for both types of agri-food wastes. Hence, NF and RO techniques could be used to obtain polyphenol-rich streams, and clean water for reuse purposes.

Comparison of reverse osmosis (X‐20, RO‐99) and nanofiltration (NF‐270) membranes in the concentration of hawthorn fruit and anise seed extracts

“…Tapia‐Quirós et al . (2022) also found BW30LE membranes rejected more than 99.9% of TPC for both the winery and olive mill wastes by aqueous‐based processing, while NF270 membranes rejected about 99% of TPC. On the other hand, (Zin et al ., 2020) mentioned that RO99 was superior to X20 in the concentration of beetroot peel extracts.…”

The Optimization of Operating Conditions in the Cross-Flow Microfiltration of Grape Marc Extract by Response Surface Methodology

“…Pressure-driven membrane operations represent useful approaches in this regard because they can operate under mild conditions of temperature and pressure, without involving the addition of chemicals or solvents to the feed stream, avoiding product contamination and preserving the biological activity of the compounds of interest. These processes are based on a sieving mechanism involving the physical separation of analytes based on particle or molecular size [ 35 ]. Consequently, they do not require a phase change or high temperatures to reach high selectivity [ 36 ].…”

“…Pressure-driven membrane operations have been demonstrated to be a useful approach for the recovery of phenolic-based molecules from agro-food residues, delivering high yields in terms of flux and the retention of bioactive compounds [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. In particular, microfiltration (MF) and ultrafiltration (UF) processes are useful approaches to remove suspended solids and colloids from the original stream or raw extracts; UF and nanofiltration (NF) can be used to selectively separate phenolic compounds from other compounds (e.g., sugars, proteins, lipids); NF and reverse osmosis (RO) can be used to concentrate polyphenol-rich streams [ 35 ]. The performance of these processes in terms of productivity and selectivity towards phenolic compounds is affected by several parameters including operating and fluid-dynamic conditions (i.e., transmembrane pressure (TMP), feed flow rate and temperature) as well as membrane materials and properties (hydrophilicity/hydrophobicity, surface topography, charge and pore size) which have a strong influence on membrane–solute interactions, and hence on membrane fouling phenomena [ 37 , 40 , 41 ].…”

Hydroxytyrosol recovery from olive pomace: a simple process using olive mill industrial equipment and membrane technology

“…Tapia-Quirós et al ( 2022b , 2022c ) have proposed an integrated scheme for olive pomace processing, consisting of a preliminary extraction with water followed by sequential membrane-based fractionation steps and a final concentration step using reverse osmosis. The authors highlight that NF membranes allowed to separate between families of polyphenols due to their low rejection for low molecular weight polyphenols (Tapia-Quirós et al 2022d ).…”