Potential of chitosan-based membranes for the separation of essential oil components by target-organophilic pervaporation.

The present review focus on the potential of chitosan-based membranes to be employed in the separation of terpenes by pervaporation; the pervaporation is also addressed as an emerging process for the separation of essential oil components. Essential oils and their components are important feedstocks for several branches of industry, also having potential to be used in active packaging and to combat agricultural pests. Industrially, the fractionation of essential oils is carried out by fractional distillation under vacuum, a method that is economically and energetically costly. Several kinds of chitosan-based membranes for pervaporation separations are also presented. Additionally, it is presented a brief discussion about the challenges of using this kind of material, and conventional polymers, to separate organic compounds by pervaporation. Although most of chitosan-based pervaporation membranes are aimed to hydrophilic pervaporation, there are works which employed this biopolymer in target-organophilic pervaporation, with successful results. Along with the well-established use of pervaporation in the food industry, mainly in the obtainment of aroma compounds, the development and application of chitosan-based membranes may help to overcome the current difficulties of the target-organophilic pervaporation, especially regarding the separation of essential oils and essential oil components.