Conclusions
It was demonstrated that non-porous membrane distillation can be used to dealcoholize beer without losing the other nutritive and flavoring components in beer such as maltose and glycerol. The results indicate that non-porous membrane distillation can be used to dealcoholize beer without losing the other nutrients and flavoring components such as maltose and glycerol. The increase of feed pressure and vacuum pressure can improve membrane flux due to higher permeability. However, membrane selectivity is decreased with the increase of vacuum pressure. The membrane flux and ethanol concentration in permeate are 0.15–0.76 L/m2 h and 3.66–4.64%-vol., respectively. Meanwhile, there are no specific sequences on the maltose concentration in the effect of operating conditions. The slight loss of maltose in the dealcoholized beer can be attributed to adsorption phenomena in membrane surface thus membrane flushing may be conducted to recover it.