Membrane Fouling in Ultrafiltration of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) Protein Purification: Impacts and Mitigation Strategies to Improve Process Efficiency

This work investigates membrane fouling in the ultrafiltration of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis), with the objective of studying its impact on protein extraction. Through a qualitative literature review, fouling was characterized as a dynamic and multiscale phenomenon that can be enhanced by physical and chemical interactions and by the system complexity. Results show that conventional models of single-protein systems do not represent multicomponent systems clearly, as the behavior is not linear. In addition, factors such as pH, operational conditions and membrane properties are highlighted as the main factors influencing fouling rate. The study indicates that fouling represents an important economic and technical challenge and suggests that integrated mitigation strategies with emerging technologies may improve the performance of protein extraction.