Electrodialysis (ED) was first established for water desalination and is still highly recommended in this field for its high water recovery, long lifetime and acceptable electricity consumption. Today, thanks to technological progress in ED processes and the emergence of new ion-exchange membranes (IEMs), ED has been extended to many other applications in the food industry. This expansion of uses has also generated several problems such as IEMs' lifetime limitation due to different ageing phenomena (because of organic and/or mineral compounds). The current commercial IEMs show excellent performance in ED processes; however, organic foulants such as proteins, surfactants, polyphenols or other natural organic matters can adhere on their surface (especially when using anion-exchange membranes: AEMs) forming a colloid layer or can infiltrate the membrane matrix, which leads to the increase in electrical resistance, resulting in higher energy consumption, lower water recovery, loss of membrane permselectivity and current efficiency as well as lifetime limitation. If these aspects are not sufficiently controlled and mastered, the use and the efficiency of ED processes will be limited since, it will no longer be competitive or profitable compared to other separation methods. In this work we reviewed a significant amount of recent scientific publications, research and reviews studying the phenomena of IEM fouling during the ED process in food industry with a special focus on the last decade. We first classified the different types of fouling according to the most commonly used classifications. Then, the fouling effects, the characterization methods and techniques as well as the different fouling mechanisms and interactions as well as their influence on IEM matrix and fixed groups were presented, analyzed, discussed and illustrated.
Keywords: electrodialysis; food industry; foulant identification; fouling mechanisms; ion-exchange membrane.