Pervaporation: a useful tool in food analysis

An overview of applications of analytical pervaporation in food analysis is presented. Various designs of both the analytical pervaporation module and the continuous manifolds utilised are discussed in order to show the versatility of this non-chromatographic continuous separation technique for different challenges encountered in the automation of the overall analytical processes. Examples of the on-line analysis of liquid, semi-solid and solid samples in food and beverage industries are detailed. Finally, the potential of pervaporation as an alternative to commonly used gas–liquid separation techniques is also discussed.