Clarification of Citrus fruit (Mosambi) juice by hybrid (Pretreatment and Membrane) process

Abstract

Clarify citrus fruit mosambi (sweet lime) juice demand were increased in non-seasoning and pandemic situation due to high content of vitamin C and for enhance immunity. Membrane separation is the unique process to clarify the raw juice and store it for prolonged duration at appropriate environments. Low permeates flux and high fouling rate with operating time is the major drawback in membrane separation process. Enhance permeates flux and fouling was improved by pretreatment of raw juice before membrane separation process. Common pretreatment namely, centrifugation and fining agent (single or combination of two) were applied previously for clarification of juice. Detailed studies for pretreatment of sweet lime juice were done individually. On the basis of these pretreatment method estimated the value of optimum rpm for centrifugation machine and dose concentration in fining agent pretreatment. At optimum conditions in different pretreatments process, membrane operation was coupled to achieve clarified juice from pretreatment juice. Dead end filtration cell (batch cell) with material of stainless steel at capacity of 1000 ml was used for clarification of juice. Polymeric (polyamide) membrane with average pore size 2.5 µm at operating pressure 69 kPa was used to conduct the experiment. Physicochemical properties of raw, pretreated and clarified juice were compared each other’s.