Abstract
Gas hydrates constitute of gas as a guest molecule in hydrogen-bonded water lattices. This review covers ongoing hydrate research in food technology with a spotlight on carbon dioxide (CO2) application as a hydrate. The application of gas hydrates in the concentration of juices, desalination, carbonation, and food preservation has been covered in the review. One of the applications of CO2 hydrate technology was in the concentration of orange juice which gave a dehydration ratio (DR) of 57.2% at a pressure of 4.1 MPa. Similarly, one study applied it for the tomato juice concentration and had a DR of 65.2%. The CO2 hydrate rate constants recorded were 0.94 × 10−8 and 1.65 × 10−8 J−1 mol2 s−1 at a feed pressure of 1.81 and 3.1 MPa respectively. Hence, CO2 hydrate can be used effectively for the juice concentration as well as for other applications too. The review will cater insights on the generic trends of hydrates in food research with respect to their kinetics properties and their role in food applications. Despite the fact that there are no technology stoppers to exploit CO2 hydrates, a downright technological quantum leap is the need of the future in this riveting field. Thus, the perspectives and key challenges in food research are also discussed. The food applications of CO2 gas hydrates are still very scarce so there is an urge to carry through more theoretical and experimental analysis to elucidate various applications of hydrates in food and to positively validate its sustainability.
Highlights
In the last decennium, gas hydrate research has gained attention in different fields
Gas hydrates are crystal/cage-like structure which forms between water and guest molecules at temperature 273 K and 1–10 MPa pressure range depending on the guest molecules
It is irrefutable that sequestering CO2 as gas hydrates for food research has enormous potential in the near future
Summary
Gas hydrate research has gained attention in different fields. In recent times, the aggrandizement in food research was ablaze by the gas hydrate applications to CO2 capture/storage, separation of gas, and desalination of water. The average time of hydrate formation to yield maximum concentration was in hours which was quite impractical when one has to deal with large quantities (1000 kg/s) of liquid food/juice (Adnan et al 2018). Gas hydrate technology in comparison to thermal distillation, reverse osmosis (RO), and pressure-driven technologies for the desalination of H2O has several merits in terms of energy required cost of production, and the environmental effect (Youssef et al 2014). One of the positive discoveries with gas hydrate was reported by Park et al (2011) who altogether made a process design for separating hydrate crystals from the brine (concentration) solution with the application of a pelletizer (dual cylinder having pistons). Some points for it are compiled below: 1. An exhaustive study on how the replacement reaction occurs should be elaborated: how H2O/CO2 transportation/rearrangement during replacement reaction takes place, whether before the process of exchange the parent hydrate dissociates or not is very well explained and requires further insights
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