Combination of microfiltration and osmotic evaporation to prepare high quality passion fruit juice concentrates

A novel membrane separation process called osmotic evaporation (OE) was used to extract the water from passionfruit juice at ambient temperature, allowing to avoid the thermal degradation associated with conventional vacuum distillation (VD). Pilot scale OE was combined to crossflow microfiltration (MF) to produce a high quality concentrate. OE applied to pulpy or clarified juices allowed to achieve concentration degrees higher than 45° Brix, comparable with VD concentrates. OE gave a total solute retention and a significantly improved aroma, retention. A very promising intermediate product of 35° Brix could be obtained by adding the MF retentate to the OE concentrate of clarified juice. (Resume d'auteur)