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In the chemical engineering world that always strives to make its processes less energy consuming, more compact, environmentally friendly, etc., membranes have proven to be capable of controlling both energy and mass transfer of fluids. A function that needs to be integrated into the antisolvent crystallization process to limit the random kinetic and thermodynamic aspects, responsible for undesired crystal size and shape [1]. This work realized a narrow crystal size distribution of L-serine using membrane-assisted antisolvent crystallization (MAAC). The two membranes polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) and polypropylene (PP) possessed a water contact angle of 130° and 150° respectively, necessary to avoid membrane wetting by the crystallizing solution. These membranes succeeded in controlling the transmembrane transport of antisolvent under different solution velocities on both sides of the membrane at ambient conditions. In all cases, membranes have provided a narrow crystal size distribution, that is significantly better than either the commercially available L-serine, or the crystals resulting from batch antisolvent crystallization or drop-by-drop. Thanks to the quantification of both the evolution of L-serine and Ethanol (the antisolvent) along the operating time, this study above all, elevated an intriguing dynamic of MAAC. The increase of the antisolvent or the crystallizing solution velocities didn’t necessarily increase the antisolvent transmembrane flux as reported in [2]; instead, it has proven that an excess of one or another at a specific spacetime inside the membrane module can result in wetting or the system blockage, originating from the membrane, module, or tubing. This study for the first time invites us to use the principles of mass transfer in porous membranes to describe and gain an understanding of the resulting crystal quality [3].
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Chergaoui, S., Debecker, D., Leyssens, T., Luis Alconero, P., & et al. (2022). Controlling L-serine antisolvent crystallization using hydrophobic polymeric membranes. Euromembrane 2022, Sorrento, Italy. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/103361