Toray Industries, Inc. announced today that it has developed and started to provide customers with samples of very robust hollow fiber ultrafiltration membrane modules for use in food and beverage manufacturing and biotechnology purification and concentration processes. The carbon dioxide emissions of this module are more than 80% lower than the traditional thermal concentration process in the food production sector, which can save energy and contribute to carbon neutrality. The company will accelerate its development and cultivate a series of applications with the goal of full-scale mass production.

Hollow fiber membranes have become one of the mainstreams of liquid filtration due to their excellent separation performance, high membrane integration, small footprint, and high area utilization efficiency. Toray's existing hollow fiber membranes are widely used in water treatment. This is because its polyvinylidene fluoride ultrafiltration hollow fiber membrane technology provides excellent durability and separability.

Toray uses the high-strength hollow fiber membrane technology cultivated in the water treatment field to develop a new module with an outward cross-flow filtration design. Cross-flow filtration is a common technique through which the feed is parallel to the membrane surface and prevents turbidity from accumulating. The pressure loss of this design is only one third of the inside-out pressure loss commonly used by food companies. Therefore, it is possible to filter and concentrate highly turbid or viscous liquids, which is a challenge for ordinary membranes.

Other benefits of Toray’s new module are its large membrane area technology, which can reduce the number of modules required, halve the space requirements, and potentially reduce cleaning and equipment costs by more than 20%.

The module performs well in steam (125°C) and hot water (90°C) environments, and can achieve heat sterilization and high-temperature filtration. The filtration test of the high-turbidity microbial culture solution using the new module proved stable long-term filtration, and steam sterilization can prevent bacterial contamination for more than 20 days.

Toray will establish cooperative relations with Japanese and foreign engineering companies to develop a range of applications. They include high-viscosity and high-turbidity raw water applications. So far, these applications have used solid-liquid separation techniques, such as diatomaceous earth filtration or centrifugation. They also include food manufacturing and biological production processes, where the production line requires heat sterilization.

In line with the corporate philosophy, Toray will continue to produce high-performance, cutting-edge materials to contribute to the development of society and technology.

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