A CAPE Tool to Simulate the Pervaporation Process for Recovering an Aroma Contributor of Orange Juice
Advancing the chemical engineering fundamentals
Membranes and Membrane Science - I (T2-8a)
Keywords: pervaporation, juice, aroma, membrane, simulator
Flavor and odor components of foods are often lost during processing, which leads to a final product with poorer quality when compared to fresh made ingredients. It is not a different scenario in orange juice and other beverage industries. Heating processes cause severe physical and chemical losses of the natural characteristic flavor of orange juice. Methods, that use lower heat, present thermal damage reduction and must be investigated to establish parameters to the future commercial processes. Membrane separation processes can be considered a promising alternative for this challenge in orange juice manufacturing. Comparative study of quantitative data of volatiles to odor threshold data suggested Ethyl Butyrate (EB) is one of the key contributors to fresh orange aroma. The recovery of the key contributors as EB before evaporation or pasteurization steps creates opportunities for its use where freshness of juice can be improved with aroma add back or even commercialized as aroma folded fraction. Pervaporation is an attractive technology for thermal sensitive products. This process is based on a selective transport through a membrane associated with permeate evaporation on the downstream side of the membrane. The liquid feed mixture is maintained in contact with one side of a membrane and the permeate is continuously removed from the other side in vapor phase by a vacuum pump. Pervaporation process using a poly (dimethylsiloxane) membrane was studied targeting separation and recovery of EB from a binary mixture (EB-water). It was developed a simulator named PERVAP for evaluating product quality on basis of operational conditions. Simulator allowed the calculation of selectivity and permeate flux. PERVAP assumes that the permeation flow is a function of the diffusion coefficient of penetrant components in the membrane . The diffusion coefficient was predicted considering permeation equations as a function of the diffusion phenomenon and assumed constant in the membrane. Equations proposed were validated against literature experimental data for EB-water mixture.
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Presented Tuesday 18, 16:40 to 17:00, in session Membranes and Membrane Science - I (T2-8a).
