solutions. The process efficiency was evaluated by permeance and
selectivity, showing that ethanol flux increase has a major effect on
the total flux increase, especially for fermentation broth. In fact, in
the specific case of ethanol produced from lignocellulosic banana
waste, greater values were observed for the pervaporation index
than for the standard mixture. This could due to by-products present
in the multicomponent mixtures facilitating the ethanol permeability.
By-products analysis show that the presence of lactic
acid increased the hydrophilicity of the membrane, which
increased the flow of water, whereas the increase in the flow of
ethanol can be attributed to the effect of membrane fouling.
Thus, it can be concluded that the pervaporation of ethanol produced
from banana waste is indeed a technology with the potential
to be applied. The results showed a very interesting performance,
highlighting the better separation efficiency for fermentation broth
in relation to model solutions.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the support received from the Universidade
da Região de Joinville – Univille as well as all of the
resources that allowed for the preparation of this work, and
acknowledge the financial support that was received in the form
of research grants