APPLICATIONS OF MEMBRANE TECHNIQUES TO THE PROCESSING OF BRAZILIAN FRUIT JUICE

Abstract

Brazil offers a remarkable fruit biodiversity and is also the world's leading exporter of fruit juice. However, most of its tropical fruits are not widely commercialised and concentrated orange juice is the first of its exported production. The potential for exploiting the fruits of this country is therefore enormous. With the objective of better commercialising these fruits, Embrapa, Unicamp, and Cirad are conducting joint research programmes in Brazil and France on the application of membrane techniques to the microfiltration and concentration of fruit juices. The objective is to improve the microbiological, organoleptic and nutritional qualities of these drinks. Two of the processes studied are cold clarification and cold pasteurisation. They allow thermo-sensitive compounds of nutritional and sensory interest, such as micronutrients, vitamins, and aroma compounds to be preserved. Filtration has also been used to concentrate juices rich in functional molecules such as carotenoids. Finally, osmotic evaporation has been coupled to clarification to obtain a juice base rich in ascorbic acid.