Customised Integrated Solution

Lithium Extraction

The development of salt lake lithium extraction technology began in the 1970s when a breakthrough in the technology of lithium extraction from the water was discovered and the lithium carbonate production cost was much lower than the extraction of lithium from ore. As such, salt lake lithium extraction has become a major trend and Suntar has developed different lithium extraction methods over many years to accommodate the characteristics of salt lake, to provide our customers with a complete salt lake lithium extraction membrane process.

 

Continuous Moving Bed Technology and Membrane Process Package (Magnesium-lithium separation, boron removal, concentration technology).

01

ADVANTAGES

By means of moving bed adsorption, membrane, and resin coupling, a high-concentration, high-purity lithium-rich solution is extracted from the salt lake for the production of lithium salts.

Customised Integrated Solution

Nuclear Power

Nuclear power plants require a limited value of dissolved silicon content in boron-containing
water system of primary circuit. When the silicon content of the primary boron containing water system exceeds the safety limit, the boron-containing water system needs to be purified and the silicon concentration should be reduced to the safety limit, so as to ensure the safe operation of units. The chemical and physical properties of dissolved silicon are very close to those of boric acid, making it very difficult to separate dissolved silicon from boric acid. Due to strict water quality requirements in nuclear power plant, impurities cannot be introduced while removing dissolved silicon. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure a high recovery rate of boric acid
and control the generation of waste from nuclear power plants.

The application of nanofiltration membrane technology can reduce the silicon concentration in the boron containing water system to a safe limit (<500ppb), while minimizing the discharge of waste liquid as much as possible to ensure stable boron concentration in the system.

01

ADVANTAGES

Compact design with small footprint
CIP free and without impurities introduced
Fully automatic control, easy to operate, complete safety precautions

Customised Integrated Solution

Vitamin

Vitamin is an organic molecule that is an essential micronutrient that an organism needs in small quantities for the proper functioning of its metabolism.

Initially, Suntar worked together with many vitamin companies to apply both membrane separation technology and continuous moving bed technology into vitamin production which achieved significant results in multiple vitamins including, Vitamin C, Vitamin B2, Vitamin B12, etc. Suntar revolutionized the extraction process of Vitamin C by successfully developing a Vitamin C production process based on membrane separation and moving bed technology. This greatly reduced the production cost and turned China's Vitamin C from the yellow“ Cuban sugar” to“ white sugar” grade.

  • Clarify fermentation broth with membrane which improves filtrate quality and reduce resin pollution in subsequent processes
  • Apply ultrafiltration to remove protein, decolourise and improve quality
  • Concentrate vitamins with nanofiltration with reduced losses and lower cost
  • Adopt moving bed ion exchange to reduce resin consumption
  • Chromatography separates and recover vitamin solution
  • Membrane technology to recycle wastewater and reclaimed water

Vitamin C

01

APPLICATION

Suntar designs the safest and most suitable complete process for the production and extraction of vitamin C with internationally leading technology.
Membrane filtration of vitamin C fermentation broth with accurate MWCO achieving high quality filtrate and recovery > 98%.
Concentration of gulonic acid to over 16% with nanofiltration reduces steam consumption and greatly reduces operation costs.
Continuous ion-exchange moving bed system reduces the resin consumption by 70% for both sodium gulonate and sodium vitamin C conversion process. Greatly reduce water, acid and alkaline consumption to achieve clean production.

Vitamin B12

01

APPLICATION

Ceramic membrane removes impurities in fermentation broth, achieving high filtrate quality.
Ultrafiltration membrane further removes smaller proteins, improving subsequent resin performance.
Concentrate Vitamin B12 with membrane, improving subsequent resin adsorption rate.
Continuous ion-exchange reduces resin consumption, significantly reduces water and chemical consumption achieving clean production.

Customised Integrated Solution

Sugar Alcohol

Suntar has applied membranes and continuous moving beds to the production of xylitol, erythritol, sorbitol, etc. and has developed a biological fermentation method for the extraction process of xylitol.

  • Ceramic membrane clarifies fermentation broth achieving higher filtrate quality while reducing resin pollution and bacteria recovery in the subsequent processes.
  • Ultrafiltration to remove protein, pigment and improve quality.
  • Nanofiltration concentrate sugar alcohol which improves crystal recovery.
  • Continuous moving bed reduces resin consumption and unit consumption.
  • Chromatography improves resin utility and product recovery.
01

APPLICATION

Ceramic membrane filters erythritol fermentation broth achieving high quality filtrate.
Nanofiltration removes impurities such as solube marcromolecular substances and pigments.
Simulated moving bed removes ash from erythritol, and reduces chemical and water consumption.

Customised Integrated Solution

Tea

The principle of tea extract is very similar to that of Coca-Cola which involves the processing of standardised concentrated liquids or tea powder to produce finished beverages. Therefore, industrialised tea extraction is a revolution in the history of the tea industry.

From tea leaves to tea concentrates or tea powder, although the brewing process is easy, maintaining the original aroma and colour of the tea soup without precipitation is a technical difficulty in the food processing industry. The emergence of membrane separation technology is the most effective way to solve these problems.

01

APPLICATION

Ceramic membranes remove impurity in the tea extract effectively to obtain clear tea extract.
Nanofiltration concentrates tea while retaining the flavour compound which can withstand high temperature filtration, cleaning and sterilization.
Sanitary design of membrane system to meet the requirements of healthy food production.

Customised Integrated Solution

Organic Acid

Suntar, together with organic acid production companies, developed a series of membrane technologies combined with continuous moving bed technology for the production of organic acids based on years of membrane application and engineering experience.

  • Ceramic membrane clarifies fermentation broth, improves filtrate quality and reduces resin pollution in the subsequent processes.
  • Membrane filtration removes impurities with small MWCO and improves the product quality.
  • Continuous ion-exchange moving bed increases desalination stability and product recovery rate as well as reduce resin consumption.
  • Chromatography extracts organic acids and revolutionized the extraction process.

Lactic Acid

01

APPLICATION

Nanofiltration: Reduce reducing sugar concentration in the product which increase its thermal stability. Membrane filtrations produce high quality lactic acid.
Continuous moving bed ion-exchange process greatly increases resin utilization and reduce material consumption.

Citric Acid

The traditional citric acid extraction method calcium salt precipitation method which is hindered by the low filtration quality of traditional filtration processes which causes problems to the subsequent processes.

 

Suntar developed continuous ion-exchange technology for clean production of citric acid based on many years of membrane application and engineering experiences which revolutionized the citric acid production industry.

01

APPLICATION

Continuous ion-exchange with increased resin utility reduces material consumption and increases citric acid product concentration

Customised Integrated Solution

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Liquid medicine production takes up to 1 or 2 months due to repeated processing which increases the chance of bacterial contamination and lowers the active ingredient concentration. Most of the product has high impurity concentration, poor clarity and stability which hinders the industrialization and marketing of traditional Chinese medicine. Membrane separation technology helps to solve the problems faced in industrial application.

01

FEATURES

Apply membrane to remove impurities which improves the clarity and stability of the injection. No phase change during separation preserves the biological stability of the active ingredient. Lower raw material and solvent consumption and active ingredients increase by 10-100%. Apply low temperature filtration to improve product quality. Short process flow and production cycle that is simple and cheap to operate.

02

APPLICATION

Ultrafiltration clarification technology application

Most of the active ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine has molecular weight below 1000.
The impurities are macromolecules which are retained with ultrafiltration membrane.
Concentration with nanofiltration and reverse osmosis
Conventionally, high energy consumption evaporation is used to concentrate Chinese medicine
after extraction. Adopting membrane instead allows the solvent to be recycled while
increasing the concentration of the active ingredient.

Nanofiltration membrane concentration and purification advantages:

  • Low energy consumption（Pressure as only driving force）
  • Membrane can withstand a wide range of conditions and a high concentration factor
  • Equipment is simple and compact, simple to operate, with fully automated operation
  • Room temperature concentration does not damage the active ingredient, low loss rate (below 0.1%), permeate can be recycled for near zero loss
  • Remove inorganic salt impurities and reduce product ash
Customised Integrated Solution

Dairy Product

Membrane technology has been used in the dairy industry for many years. The advantages of membrane separation technology in the dairy industry make it more and more practical and has a broad application prospect in dairy processing.

  • Reduce wastewater and environmental pollution
  • Simplify production process and reduce energy consumption
  • No dairy contamination as no additives added
  • Low temperature operation to prevent thermal degradation of product. Protects the nutrients in dairy from degradation and loss to improve utilization efficiency of dairy product.

Membrane separation application in dairy industry:

  • Sterilisation of skimmed milk with ceramic membrane；
  • Concentration of skimmed milk with nanofiltration；
  • Milk protein concentration, whey recovery and processing;
  • Standardisation of dairy product；
  • Production wastewater recycling;
01

APPLICATION

Nanofiltration of whey for concentration and desalination with no loss.
Nanofiltration of whey concentrate to separate whey protein and lactose achieving whey protein standardization.
Sanitary design of membrane system to meet the requirements of healthy food production.

Customised Integrated Solution

Alkaline Recovery

In the production of viscose fiber, cotton pulp is commonly soaked in NaOH which is then pressed. The composition of cotton pulp is complicated with more than 85% of cellulose. The general formula of cellulose is (C6H10O5)n where it is classified based on the value of n into three classes, α-cellulose, β-cellulose and γ-cellulose.

 

The pulp is soaked in 200-210g/L NaOH solution. The main purpose is to react cellulose with NaOH to produce alkaline cellulose but a large amount of concentrated alkaline is also produced. The concentrated alkaline solution contains dissolved hemicellulose which can be separated with membrane separation technology
achieving alkaline recovery

01

APPLICATION

Efficiency of Nanofiltration is 10 times higher than that of traditional filtration process.
The primary recovery rate of alkaline by membrane filtration is over 85% and the filtrate can enter the dipping process directly. Depending on the needs of different production processes, secondary alkaline recovery can be carried out with minimal water added. The concentration of secondary recovered alkaline is no less than 100g/L. The concentration of NaOH filtered and the quality of the filtrate of the membrane technology is higher than that of the dialysis process.

Customised Integrated Solution

Chlor-Alkali Industry

The chlor-alkali industry is one of the basic chemical raw material industries. Currently, the softening process is done with flocculation sedimentation method. This process is complicated and difficult to operate requiring large amount of chemicals and filter aid. In recent years, Suntar has increased the application of membrane separation technology in this industry and developed
softening process based on membrane technology.

  • Ceramic membranes used for softening process which shortens the overall extraction process.
  • Nanofiltration membrane to remove divalent ions.
  • Membrane filtration produced recycled water.
01

APPLICATION

Cross flow filtration ensures no fouling of ceramic membrane with highly concentrated Mg(OH)2 and BaSO4 thus no pretreatment needed. Both alkaline are added at almost the same time which significantly shorten the processing time.
Ceramic membranes eliminate the need for pretreatment before softening. This eliminates the workload of cleaning and pre-coating and avoid the secondary pollution of brine caused by silicon.
Primary brine after ceramic membrane filtration has suspended solids mass fraction <1x10-6. This plays a positive role in the high efficiency, long lifespan and low-cost operation of the secondary softening electric cell and ion membrane.
35% lower capital cost due to the short process flow.