Apparatus and method for removing compounds from a

专利名称：Apparatus and method for removing

compounds from a solution

发明人：Clark R. Smith申请号：US08/218920申请日：19940328公开号：US05480665A公开日：19960102

摘要：Method and apparatus for the treatment of fluids, particularly wine, to removeunwanted substances. The wine is treated in a reverse osmosis (R.O.) treatment unit,generating a retentate and a raw permeate. The membrane for the R.O. unit is selectedto pass in the permeate the unwanted substances, such as volatile acidity (ethyl acetateand acetic acid). The raw permeate is subjected to a treatment column. In the case ofvolatile acidity, this is an anion exchange column, which removes the acetic acid from thepermeate by anion exchange and removes the ethyl acetate by base hydrolysis. Thisproduces a purified permeate, which is depleted in volatile acidity, but contains othercomponents desirable for the wine. The purified permeate is then recombined with theretentate from the R.O. column, and the result is wine with the volatile acidity and littleelse removed. This wine may be recirculated through the system to remove yet more ofthe volatile acidity. Before the anion exchange step, a low-energy distillation may be usedto remove CO.sub.2, H.sub.2 S, or other relatively volatile compounds. To removeacetaldehyde, a low- energy distillation column is used instead of the anion exchangecolumn, and the distillation residue constitutes the purified permeate that is recombinedwith the retentate from the R.O. column. A high-energy distillation column may be used

to separate out alcohol and water, and then add either the alcohol or the water back tothe R.O. retentate, thus producing either a higher alcohol or a lower alcohol beverage.

申请人：SMITH; CLARK R.

代理机构：Dergosits & Noah

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