Abstract

Cagaita (Eugenia dysenterica DC) is a Brazilian cerrado fruit with great economic potential and can be consumed in natura or as processed products like juices and pulps. The search for products with lower nutritional and sensorial changes led to the non-thermal techniques development where membrane processes stand out. The use of immobilized pectinolytic enzymes to reduce juices and pulps turbidity and viscosity has advantages over free enzymes such as enzyme reduction costs and reuse. The objective was the hydrolysis optimization of cagaita pulp with encapsulated pectinase, evaluation of reuse in cycles and application in microfiltration (MF). The free commercial enzymes and encapsulated activity in calcium alginate in pulp was evaluated, viscosity and turbidity reduction. The optimum hydrolysis with encapsulated enzymes conditions were temperature (30 °C), without stirring, enzymatic concentration (570 μL/L), considering clarity increment and viscosity reduction. After 8 cycles, encapsulated enzymes maintained 30% of its activity in reducing viscosity and reuse possibility. Microfiltration flow rate of hydrolyzed pulp with encapsulated enzymes was 13.4% higher than the nonhydrolyzed, indicating that enzymatic hydrolysis was efficient in time reduction. Encapsulated enzymes can be applied in juices and pulps as a pre-process for increasing the permeate flows, reducing operational and input costs.

Highlights

  • The Cerrado region and the Brazilian Pantanal present a great fruit species variety, still underutilized by local communities for the lack of scientific knowledge and incentive for its commercialization

  • This work aimed the production of encapsulated pectinolitic enzymes in calcium alginate, to apply as a previous step in cagaita pulp clarification by microfiltration (MF) and its reutilization

  • The conditions for the encapsulated enzyme were better than for the free enzyme, since they allowed to act at lower temperatures without stirring, which facilitates the process and the small increase in the enzyme amount was compensated by the possibility of reuse

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Summary

Introduction

The Cerrado region and the Brazilian Pantanal present a great fruit species variety, still underutilized by local communities for the lack of scientific knowledge and incentive for its commercialization. The cagaiteira (Eugenia dysenterica DC.) belongs to the Myrtaceae family and is a native species of the Cerrado with great potential of introduction to the crop, for producing fruits appreciated, both for in natura consumption and in the processed forms as juices, fermented beverages (Figueiredo et al, 2019), liqueur, jelly and sweets among others. The main methods used for fruit juices and pulps preservation are the pasteurization and other thermal processes like UHT (Ultra High Temperature). These methods, while guaranteeing microbiological quality, cause undesired sensory and nutritional changes. The MF, ultrafiltration (UF) and reverse osmosis (RO) have been used in large scale and have been successfully applied to some highly thermo-sensitive juices, resulting in a clarified and microbiologically safe product that preserves most of the original fruit aroma (Vaillant et al, 1999), (Rodrigues et al, 2003) (Vieira et al, 2006) and Carvalho & Silva (2010)

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