Membrane Processes for Food (MPF)
Feeding the world population with sufficient and healthy foods is one of the major challenges we face as humankind. The production needs to be increased in a sustainable manner for future generations, which also implies prevention of food waste, and making better use of the available resources. The intrinsic complexity of food production will lead to challenges for scientists from various disciplines.
Membrane filtration is already a well-established unit operation in the production of some food products such as milk and beer. The potential of applying membranes to a wider variety of processes is very real, since they are very versatile. Membrane processes also offer relatively mild processing conditions in relation to conventional processing, elevating the quality of the final product.
The objective of the Membrane Processes for Food group is to explore the potential of membranes to improve existing processes as well as to propose solutions for the food processing challenges of the future.
Research will focus on effects occurring at different scales (nano-, micrometer, …) that are used as general starting points for the design of membrane processes for food. The Membrane Processes for Food group also closely collaborates with the Soft matter, Fluidics and Interfaces group.
The chair of the MPF group is held by Karin Schroën.
