Satoko Hatahira
Senior Researcher, Toray Industries, Incorporated
Satoko Hatahira (Kanamori) is Senior Researcher at Toray Industries, Incorporated. She has engaged in development of Membrane and its process for food & beverage and bio-production for 10 years. She has experiences of research on bio-production processes of chemical products by microorganisms and development of clinical diagnosis chips using immunological measurement methods. She obtained Master of degree in Agriculture at graduate school of Kyoto University and specializes in microbiology and protein engineering.
Research and Development of Heat-sterilizable membrane module
Microfiltration membranes and ultrafiltration membranes are excellent in permeate quality and footprint, and hollow fiber membranes are particularly advantageous in terms of cost because they can be highly integrated. Therefore, it is widely used for water treatment such as drinking water and sewage wastewater treatment, and beverage production. In these applications, frequent physical or chemical cleaning is applied because membrane fouling often occurs. Therefore, the membrane module is required to have high physical and chemical durability and low fouling properties. Furthermore, durability against sterilization by steam or hot water is also necessary. We have developed hollow fiber membranes that combine high strength and low fouling properties using PVDF, which has excellent chemical resistance, by Thermally induced phase separation. In addition, using this membrane, a large membrane module (26m2) with steam sterilization durability was created. This technology can be applied to a variety of beverage manufacturing applications, and we are promoting scale-up demonstration with the aim of being widely used for biomass conversion applications and efficient beer / wine clarification filtration.