Ultrafiltration of Fucus vesiculosus Extracts Under Different Operating Conditions

The interest in separating and concentrating bioactives and minerals from seaweeds extracts is growing due to large health benefits of these substances. The aim of this study was to investigate the separation of components of Fucus vesiculosus seaweed extracts by tangential ultrafiltration and apply Hermia’s models adapted to crossflow ultrafiltration to understand the fouling mechanism. The influence of membrane cut-off varying from 5 to 150 kDa, crossflow velocity from 0.081 to 0.095 m/s and transmembrane pressure between 2 and 8 bar was studied. The present study revealed that the ultrafiltration membranes process was successful in clarifying and still delivering permeates with a high content in iodine. Clarification was almost completely achieved with 5 kDa polyethersulfone membrane, while the hydrophilic polyethersulfone membrane was not adequate to due to the high retention in iodine. Cake layer formation mathematical model was successfully used to predict the permeate flux over time. There was evidence that cake layer is the fouling mechanism in the filtration of Fucus vesiculosus extracts, whatever the membrane crossflow velocity or transmembrane pressure, probably due to the high content of these extracts in alginates. Graphical Abstract