Direct osmotic concentration of tomato juice in tubular membrane – module configuration. II. The effect of using clarified tomato juice on the process performance

A study was carried out by using a new tubular direct osmosis module, constructed by PCI UK and equipped with a novel AFC99 membrane 400 μm thick, to investigate the effect of clarifying tomato juice on the rate of direct osmotic concentration. Under virtually the same operating conditions five respective clarifications of juice were tried including full, unclarified, tomato juice. The process performance was calculated in terms of permeation flux. In all the experimental runs the osmotic medium was sodium chloride brine (initial concentration approx. 23% NaCl). A remarkable increase of permeation flux (over 100%) was observed shifting from unclarified to the clarified tomato juice. Clarification was carried out by passing the juice through 35 μm mesh and also by using membranes of molecular weight cut-off 200 000, 100 000 and 25 000 Daltons (Da), respectively, in order to obtain the juice ultrafiltrates. It is also worth mentioning that the flux value obtained with 25 000 Daltons (Da) ultrafiltrate appeared to be considerably higher than values reported in experiments carried out by other researchers, where unclarified juice was used, despite the disadvantage of a far thicker membrane being used in the present investigation. This specific finding discloses great potential in using a combined low temperature and pressure ultrafiltration and direct osmosis process to produce tomato concentrates.