The pharmaceutical process of traditional Chinese medicine is an energy-material intensive process, particularly with the requirement of large input of water resource and heat source. Under carbon peaking and carbon neutrality policy, the pharmaceutical industry of traditional Chinese medicine involving processes such as refinement, concentration, enrichment of aromatic compounds, solvent recovery, etc., facing unprecedented challenges. As the nation's strategic emerging technology, membrane technology can offer great potential in the manufacturing of traditional Chinese medicine. The integrated process of membrane technologies shows decent competency with the existing manufacturing procedures and steps for traditional Chinese medicine. This review intends to introduce the concept and categories of different specialized membranes particularly fabricated for the application in traditional Chinese medicine green manufacturing for various purposes. This work also reviews the potential, challenges and scientific problems regarding the reengineering of traditional Chinese medicine manufacturing process using integrated membrane processes under the carbon peaking and carbon neutrality policy. Particularly, an algorithm is developed to estimate energy consumption for membrane concentration technology using the key characteristics of the herbal extract solution, which can facilitate the energy comparison between conventional thermal evaporation and the integrated processes of both thermal and membrane concentration technology. This can be used for the process design and optimization of the pharmaceutical manufacturing of traditional Chinese medicine with minimum energy input. The concept of carbon neutral life cycle for traditional Chinese medicine manufacturing is introduced. This work also outlined the perspectives of integrated membrane processes in the eco-industrial park of traditional Chinese medicine manufacturing.
GUO Li-Wei
,
WANG Yong-Xiang
,
ZHONG Wen-Wei
,
LI Peng
,
PENG Wen-Bo
,
ZENG Hao-Ran
. Reengineering of pharmaceutical process of traditional Chinese medicine with integrated membrane processes[J]. The Chinese Journal of Process Engineering, 2023
, 23(3)
: 411
-420
.
DOI: 10.12034/j.issn.1009-606X.222079