A promising membrane process using nanoporous membrane to remove water from concentrate commercial cranberry juice (Vaccinium macrocarpon Ait.) was studied. The technique known as osmotic distillation (OD) or osmotic evaporation (OE), allow keeping nutraceutical properties of the cranberry mainly associated to the phenolic content of the fruit.
The analyzed system is an osmotic distillation system [1] where the solutions are circulated through a hollow fiber membrane contactor operating in transient configuration with circulation rates between 0.5 and 1.5 L min-1 and concentrated solutions of CaCl2 were used as extraction brine. Temperatures conditions of 30ºC and 40ºC for the analyzed system were used. The mean transmembrane water flux was experimentally determined from 0.25 up to 1.21 L h-1m-2. Cranberry juice was concentrated from 8 to 24 ºBrix after 18 min of treatment with concentration factor between 4.46 and 6.25. The content of phenolic compounds was incremented after this processing.
Principal investigator: Dr. Carlos E. Zambra carlos.zambra.s@gmail.com
Reference
H. Valdes, J. Romero, A. Saavedra, A. Plaza, V. Bubnovich, Concentration of noni jouice by menas of osmotic distillation, Journal of Membrane Science 330 (2009) 205-213.
