Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Concentration of passion fruit juice on an industrial pilot scale using

osmotic evaporation
F. Vaillant a,c, E. Jeanton a,b, M. Dornier a,b,*, G.M. OBrien c, M. Reynes a, M. Decloux b
a
b

Centre International de Recherche Agronomique pour le D

eveloppement/FLHOR Dept., B.P. 5085, 34032 Montpellier Cedex 1, France
Ecole Nationale Sup
erieure des Industries Alimentaires/Tropical Food Engineering Dept., B.P. 5098, 34033 Montpellier Cedex 1, France
c
Universidad del Valle, Depto. de Ciencia y Tecnologa de Alimentos, Sede Mel
endez, Cali, Colombia
Received 21 February 2000; accepted 1 July 2000

Abstract
Osmotic evaporation to concentrate claried passion fruit juice was tried out on an industrial scale. A pilot plant that was
equipped with a module containing 10.2 m2 of polypropylene hollow bres was used to concentrate passion fruit juice up to a total
soluble solids (TSS) content higher than 60 g/100 g at 30C. Tangential velocity, temperature and concentration of solutions signicantly inuenced evaporation ux. An average evaporation ux of almost 0.75 kg h1 m2 was obtained with water, 0.65 kg h1
m2 when juice was concentrated to 40 g TSS/100 g and 0.50 kg h1 m2 when it reached 60 g TSS/100 g. A long-term trial, lasting 28
h, was successfully carried out without membrane fouling. Osmotic evaporation can be also conducted as a multistage procedure,
giving a constant evaporation ux of around 0.62 kg h1 m2 when juice was concentrated from 14 to 60 g TSS/100 g. Sensory
quality and vitamin C content were well preserved in the concentrated juice. 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Concentration; Fruit juice; Membrane contactor; Osmotic evaporation

1. Introduction
For economic reasons (reduced transport and storage
costs), fruit juices are routinely concentrated. This is
especially true in the case of tropical fruit juices for
which centres of production and consumption are normally far apart geographically. Classical thermal concentration techniques lead to subsequent losses of
aromatic compounds and vitamins. Especially for
tropical fruits, which are usually valued for their distinctive aromas, these losses are a serious marketing
problem. For passion fruit, Casimir, Keord and
Whiteld (1981) have reported important losses of the
initial aromatic compounds when classical concentration was applied, even when an aroma recuperation unit
was used.
Additionally, technological improvements to thermal
concentration methods, while lessening the damage they
cause, have more or less reached their peak. Despite
improvements, thermal processing continues to lead to
an inevitable loss of avour and nutrients, and the re*

Corresponding author. Tel.: +33-467-61-4432; fax: +33-467-614433.

E-mail address: dornier@cirad.fr (M. Dornier).

sulting concentrates tend towards the low-quality end of

the market. Meanwhile, a demand for fruit juices with
better conserved nutritional and sensory qualities is increasing in industrialised countries (Ganlmann, 1993).
During the last three decades, eorts have been made to
develop new technologies such as cryoconcentration and
reverse osmosis that would more satisfactorily conserve
the original qualities of thermosensitive aromatic fruit
juices. Nevertheless, these methods have been relatively
less used in industry because of the diculties in reaching juice concentration levels beyond 40 g TSS/100 g
(Gostoli, 1998; Jariel, Reynes, Courel, Durand, Dornier,
& Deblay, 1996).
Osmotic evaporation (OE) is a relatively new technology based on the use of a hydrophobic microporous
membrane to separate two liquid phases that dier
greatly in terms of solute concentration (Deblay, 1991;
Hogan, Canning, Peterson, Johnson, & Michaels, 1998;
Lefebvre, 1988). The membranes hydrophobic nature
prevents penetration of the pores by aqueous solutions,
creating air gaps within the membrane. The dierence in
water activity (Aw ) between the two sides of the membrane induces a partial pressure gradient in the vapour
phase. Vapour is transferred across the pores from the
high-vapour pressure phase to the low one. This transfer

0260-8774/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 0 - 8 7 7 4 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 1 1 5 - 1

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F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

Notation
F
Jw
L
M
P
T

ow (kg h1 )
evaporation ux (kg h1 m2 )
liquid level (m)
mass (kg)
pressure (bar)
temperature (C)

is isothermal. OE can be carried out at low temperatures

without the need for a pressure dierential, thus improving preservation of volatile compounds (Barbe,
Bartley, Jacobs, & Johnson, 1998).
Osmotic evaporation has been studied mainly in the
laboratory, using sucrose solutions, orange, grape or
tomato juices (Courel, Dornier,Herry, Rios, & Reynes,
2000; Durham & Nguyen, 1994; Sheng, Johnson, &
Lefebvre, 1991). Some work on an industrial level has
been carried out on the concentration of wine production in Australia (Johnson, Valks, & Lefebvre, 1989;
Thompson, 1991) but little is known implement OE on a
process line. The aim of this study is to evaluate the
potential of OE for concentrating claried passion fruit
juice on an industrial scale, taking into account the
relevant impact on the overall product quality.

2. Materials and methods

2.1. Passion fruit juice and quality evaluation
Processed in the PASSICOL S.A. plant (Chinchina,
Colombia), raw passion fruit juice was claried, using a
crossow microltration plant, tted with a 0.2 lm ceramic membrane (Vaillant, Millan, O'brien, Dornier, &
Decloux, 1999). To reduce viscosity and facilitate microltration, the juice was rst liqueed with enzymes.
The claried juice was then stored at )20C until
needed.
Juice was analysed for total soluble solids (TSS)
content, titratable acidity and density, using standard
AOAC methods (AOAC, 1990). Vitamin C was analysed by the Pelletiers iodine method (Pelletier, 1985).
The viscosity was determined with a glass, capillary,
routine viscometer (Cannon-Fenske) in a thermostatically controlled water bath. The water activity was determined with an Aw -meter (Novasina).
A panel of 24 tasters, who were specically trained to
taste passion fruit juice, made a sensory evaluation of
dierently processed juices. Owing to the passion fruits
high acidity, tests were done with a soft drink prepared
with 15% of juice standardised at 14 g TSS/100 g with
8.5% sucrose and water added. The tasters were invited
to distinguish between a drink containing fresh claried

TSS

total soluble solids (g/100 g)

Greek Symbols
l
dynamic viscosity (Pa s)
Subscripts
b
brine
c
concentrate
f
feed

juice and a drink made from juice concentrate according

to the triangle dierence method. According to statistical analysis, we assumed that no dierences were detected between the samples (5% condence level) when
15 or more tasters failed to distinguish the right sample.
Another test was done by comparing soft drinks prepared from (1) fresh juice, (2) juice pasteurised at 85C
for 55 s in a plate heat exchanger, (3) juice thermally
concentrated in a Centritherm CT9 evaporator (AlphaLaval), tted with an aroma recovery system, and (4)
OE-concentrated juice. Additionally, the juice from the
OE concentrate was reconstituted with insoluble solids
(pulp) from pasteurised juice that had previously been
centrifuged at 3000 g. The supernatant was removed and
replaced by an equal volume of OE concentrate reconstituted at 14 g TSS/100 g. The new supernatant blend
with pulp was homogenised with a vortex. The tasters
were asked to qualify the dierent drinks, on a scale of
010 according to their aroma, colour, taste and overall
impression, against a check sample of fresh juice to
which the score 10 was attributed for all the characteristics.
2.2. Concentration procedure
The OE unit was furnished by the COGIA Company
(Palaiseau, France) and features a module that contains
polypropylene hollow bres. The internal diameter of
the bres was 1.8 mm, the external diameter was
2.6 mm, and the average pore diameter was 0.2 lm. The
total eective area was 10.2 m2 (Fig. 1).
The juice to be concentrated was continuously circulated in a closed loop, which included the membrane
cartridge. The juice circulated inside the hollow bres
(hold-up volume of 12.9 L) with an average velocity of
0.24 m s1 . The closed loop was continuously fed with
fresh juice and the concentrate was extracted when the
TSS set-up was reached. Compared with the batch
conguration already tested in previous studies (Courel,
1999), this continuous-feed process minimises microbiological and oxidation risks.
Passing along the membranes other face, brine was
circulated between the cartridge and the thermal evaporation tank for regeneration. Circulation of both brine
and juice was co-current. Calcium chloride was chosen

F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

197

Fig. 1. Schematic of the industrial pilot plant of osmotic evaporation.

as the extracting solution because it is not toxic and

because of its low Aw at saturation (0.33 at 25C), its
ready availability and low cost. The brine was maintained close to 5.3 M (45% w/w) by keeping it at an
almost constant volume in the rig with level sensors
controlling the heat in the evaporation tank. Before
entering the membrane cartridge, the concentrated
boiling brine from the thermal evaporation tank is
cooled to the set-up temperature in a heat exchanger fed
with chilled water. Before going back the evaporator,
the diluted brine emerging from the cartridge is preheated by another exchanger fed with hot water vapours. Only the brine temperature could be controlled
by modulating the ow of chilled water into the rst
heat exchanger. Tangential velocity of the brine was
maintained constant and estimated at 1.8 103 m s1 .
Pressures at the entrances to both the concentrate loop
and the brine rig were registered with two pressure
gauges, mainly to control the pressure dierentials between the two sides of the membrane. Dierential pressure can aect membrane integrity if the value is above
the intrusion pressure given by the Laplace equation. The
tolerance limit of the dierential pressure was estimated
as being 1.5 bar with water for the used membrane.
The feed ow rate was registered with an electromagnetic owmeter (Krohne, Duisburg, Germany),
connected to a computer via a programmable logic
controller (FPO, Matsushita Electric Works, Osaka,
Japan). The ow of extracted concentrate is measured
with a balance (Mettler 0.01 kg) placed under the
collecting tank and after a density adjustment. These
ow rates were used to calculate an average evaporation
ux (Jw ) every minute and reported against time.
After each trial, the pilot plant was cleaned by rst
thoroughly rinsing the concentrate loop with pre-ltered
tap water at 40C until the emerging water produced a

TSS near zero. Then, an alkaline solution (NaOH 0.38

N) was circulated for 30 min at 50C. Finally, the circuit
was rinsed with de-ionised and distilled water.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Preliminary tests with water
The rst set of experiments was carried out with tap
water at around 30C to evaluate the evaporation performance of the pilot plant. The evaporation ux uctuated between 0.72 and 0.81 kg h1 m2 , whereas the
water temperature uctuated between 28C and 31C,
and the brine concentration uctuated between 5.1 and
5.6 M. The relative pressures inside both the concentrate
loop and the brine rig remained constant, at around
0.1 bar, which corresponded to the pressure drop on
both sides of the membrane.
The water temperature inside the closed loop closely
followed that of the brine, including uctuations,
keeping a stable dierence of around 2C. The water
temperature is therefore indirectly controlled by changes
in the brines temperature. A temperature decline in
water submitted to OE negatively aects the evaporation rate. Under similar conditions of brine concentration, evaporation ux drops 9% from when water was
31C to when it was 28C.
Under the same operating conditions, water evaporation ux diered by only 3%.
3.2. Concentrating juice by osmotic evaporation
3.2.1. Concentration without removing concentrate
Experimental results are shown in Fig. 2. With
a constant feeding of the claried juice, raising the

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F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

Fig. 2. Concentration of claried passion fruit juice using osmotic

evaporation without removing the concentrate (28C < Tc < 31C,
Tb 28C).

concentration within the closed loop from 14 to 60 g

TSS/100 g took almost 12 h. This long period resulted
from the high ratio between the total hold-up volume of
the concentrate loop (12.9 L) and the average ow of
evaporation (about 6 kg h1 ).
At rst, the temperature of both the juice and brine
was 28C, and the brine concentration was 5.3 M, giving
rise to an evaporation ux of 0.62 kg h1 m2 . The
evaporation ux started to increase steadily towards a
peak of 0.73 kg h1 m2 as a result of the brine concentration peaking at 5.5 M. The ux then tended to
decrease, following the steady decrease in brine concentration. The important inuence of the brines concentration on evaporation ux was highlighted during
these rst hours of operation.
When concentration inside the loop reached 45 g
TSS/100 g, even as the brine concentration was increasing, ux continued to decrease, corresponding to
the juices increased viscosity (Fig. 2). Evaporation ux
reached a minimum of 0.50 kg h1 m2 when juice
concentration peaked at 63 g TSS/100 g. These results
indicate the strong inuence that TSS content of the

concentrate has on the evaporation ux as, during the

last part of this trial, concentration of the brine remained almost a constant at 5:4  0:1 M.
Throughout the trial, brine temperature was maintained almost constant at 28C  1. Even so, juice
temperature increased steadily to 31C, because of
generation of heat from the viscous uid circulation in
the pump.
Pressures inside the brine rig remained constant because the solutions concentration in the range of variation found in the trial did not aect the solutions
viscosity. In contrast, in the concentrate loop, when
concentration reached a value of about 42 g TSS/100 g,
pressure began to increase exponentially. When concentration was 63 g TSS/100 g, pressure increased to
almost 1.0 bar, which, when compared with the pressure
drop in the brine rig, had still remained safe for the
membrane.
Consequently, this trial proved that OE can concentrate claried juice to at least 63 g TSS/100 g at about
30C. Complementary trials showed it was possible to
reach a concentration of 69 g TSS/100 g. At the same
brine concentration (5.45 M) and temperature (30C),
evaporation ux decreased from 0.73 kg h1 m2 at 30 g
TSS/100 g to 0.55 kg h1 m2 at 60 g TSS/100 g. This
25% decrease showed that evaporation ux is strongly
aected by concentration, particularly when it is more
than 40 g TSS/100 g. Indeed, the break-even point of the
viscosity curve with respect to concentration corresponds to this TSS value. It is the point where the juice
viscosity increases exponentially and the evaporation
ux decreases steadily, even though brine concentration
is either increasing or is a constant. As viscosity is also
heavily dependent on temperature, its inuence on the
evaporation rate also increases at high concentration
values.
We can therefore deduce that, at low TSS, as in the
case of water, evaporation ux seems to depend mainly
on brine concentration. At concentration values higher
than 40 g TSS/100 g, evaporation rate depends predominantly on juice viscosity and consequently on juice
concentration and temperature. These observations
corroborate results obtained for sucrose solutions at the
laboratory scale (Courel et al., 2000).
3.2.2. Concentration with continuous extraction of concentrate
The following experiments were carried out over 28 h
while continuously extracting the concentrate at dierent TSS levels, to show that OE can be continuously
conducted, and to nd the average values of the evaporation rate when concentration inside the loop was at
40 and 60 g TSS/100 g. These concentration values were
chosen in function of, respectively, hygiene during the
process and commercial usage. Indeed, 40 g TSS/100 g is
the lowest concentration at which growth of microor-

F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

ganisms is limited, at least during the time needed for the

process, as it corresponds to a water activity of below
0.92. However, a concentration level of 60 g TSS/100 g is
needed for commercial operation, even though the
evaporation ux would be signicantly lower, as found
before.
Experimental results (Fig. 3) show that, thanks to an
important inertia, the TSS of the extracted concentrate
could be easily controlled to within 1.5 g TSS/100 g of
the desired value during various hours of operation.
As observed before, the evaporation ux follows a
general decreasing trend when juice concentration increases. Nonetheless, we can observe three distinct
phases where evaporation rate uctuates around an
average value. The rst phase corresponds to the extraction of concentrate at 40 g TSS/100 g, the second
when concentrate was extracted at 60 g TSS/100 g and
the third when the tangential velocity on the concentrate side was abruptly decreased. During these
phases, when concentration and circulation ows were
constant during extraction, ux depended mainly on
the uctuations of brine concentration. Under almost
identical conditions of operation (brine concentration

199

at 5:3  0:2 M and juice temperature at 30C  0:7), the

average evaporation rate was almost 0.66 kg h1 m2
at 40 g TSS/100 g and only 0.49 kg h1 m2 at 60 g
TSS/100 g. The average decrease in evaporation rate is
about 26%, comparing concentrations at 40 and 60 g
TSS/100 g, under similar operational conditions.
At the end of an almost steady state operation, when
60 g TSS/100 g concentration was achieved and concentrates were collected in over various hours, we deliberately decreased the circulation ow abruptly,
reducing the tangential velocity from 0.24 to 0.09 m s1 .
The evaporation ux also dropped by almost 20% from
an average 0.49 to 0.40 kg h1 m2 . At high concentration levels, tangential velocity strongly inuences the
evaporation rate. In fact, we can assume that, as mass
transfer occurs only at the membranes surface, the
liquid near the surface becomes increasingly concentrated. Once it reaches a critical concentration level, its
viscosity begins to rise rapidly with an increased polarisation eect that is highly sensitive to hydrodynamic parameters and, consequently, to further water
removal.
The water evaporation ux uctuations in this experiment can be explained by operating parameters
(tangential velocity, temperature and concentration of
both brine and juice). Almost the same evaporation
uxes were achieved under similar conditions, but independently of time. This fact tends to show that, at
least over the trial period of almost 28 h, no dynamic
fouling layer was formed at the membranes surface.
3.3. Conducting multistage concentration

Fig. 3. Concentration of claried passion fruit juice using osmotic

evaporation with the continuous extraction of concentrate (26C < Tc
< 29C, Tb 30C).

During OE, as applied to claried juice, the concentration ux is aected negatively by the concentration
level achieved. Even so, compared with other low
temperature concentration techniques such as reverse
osmosis or cryoconcentration, the decrease is not as
dramatic. Under similar conditions, the average evaporation ux decreased by only about 12% between 0 and
40 g TSS/100 g and by 26% between 40 and 60 g TSS/100
g. To obtain a better overall performance during concentration, OE can be conducted within a multistage
conguration.
An experiment was conducted with the concentrated
juice at 40 g  1 TSS/100 g extracted from previous OE
trials, to raise the concentration to 60 g TSS/100 g.
Fig. 4 shows that when a concentrate of 40 g TSS/100 g
circulates inside the loop, the average water ux is about
0.65 kg h1 m2 . Under similar conditions, when the
concentrate is increased to 60 g TSS/100 g, the water ux
decreases to an average 0.50 kg h1 m2 . About the same
average values were found in the previous experiment,
proving that, under similar conditions, experimental
evaporation rate is repeatable.

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F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

3.4. Cleaning the membranes

Fig. 4. Concentration of claried passion fruit juice using osmotic

evaporation with the continuous feed of concentrate at 40 g TSS/100 g.

We compared the production of concentrate at 60 g

TSS/100 g between the one-stage and a two-stage process
(Fig. 5). In the two-stage process, in the rst stage, the
concentration level in the closed loop can be maintained
at 40 g TSS/100 g by constantly feeding with freshly
claried juice and removing the concentrate at 40 g TSS/
100 g. The removed concentrate is, in its turn, used to
feed a second stage in which concentration in the loop is
kept at 60 g TSS/100 g. The two-stage procedure saves
almost 20% of the membranes surface area. The juices
average residence time is also considerably reduced.

After each experiment, the entire equipment was

thoroughly rinsed with warm tap water (40C). For
some trials, after rinsing, an evaporation test, in which
the loop was lled with water, was carried out. Evaporation rates after a simple rinsing did not result in signicant dierences between the usual water evaporation
rate expected under the same conditions when the
membrane was completely clean. The same observation
was found after cleaning with soda solution, although
the cleaning solution turned slightly yellow, suggesting
that some molecules attached to the membranes surface
were removed. They may have corresponded to some
hydrophobic pigments from the passion fruit juice that
had stuck to the membranes surface, but without noticeably interfering with the evaporation process. Van
Gassel and Schneider (1986) had similar ndings in experiments on membrane distillation.
After 25 continuous processing and cleaning cycles
and almost 250 h of accumulated operation, we did not
detect salt leakage into the feed juice. This proved that
the hydrophobic integrity of the membrane and the
module was maintained, even under industrial conditions.
Thus, OE can apparently be conducted for various
hours without needing to clean the membrane, at least
not for operational reasons. Reasons of hygiene, however, may oblige the insertion of a cleaning cycle at
regular intervals. To avoid this problem, an aseptic
connection between the previous step of microltration
and OE could also be envisaged.

Fig. 5. Scheme of one- or two-stage continuous-feed osmotic evaporation process and membrane area required.

F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

3.5. Concentrate quality

All samples of the juice concentrated at 60 g TSS/100
g for sensory quality tests were obtained after at least 3 h
of continuous extraction of concentrate, at a time when
we could consider that the hold-up volume was completely renewed. Once the hold-up volume was renewed,
the average residence time of the juice to be concentrated from 14 to 60 g TSS/100 g was calculated as being
1.3 h.
The quality of the concentrates produced was rst
assessed by comparing fresh, claried juice with claried
juice reconstituted from OE concentrate. A simple triangular dierence test, carried out with highly trained
tasters, showed that no signicant dierences (5% condence level) could be noticed. The same tasters could

201

easily recognise fresh juice from juice reconstituted from

concentrate obtained by thermal processing.
A second test was done, comparing the juice reconstituted from OE concentrate with pulp obtained from
pasteurised juice. This juice was compared with fresh
juice, pasteurised juice and juice reconstituted from
thermal concentrate. The tasters were asked to qualify
aroma, taste and colour, and to give an overall score
(Fig. 6). Reconstituted juice from OE concentrate is very
similar to pasteurised juice as far as aroma, taste and
colour are concerned. For these factors, scores obtained
by the OE sample concentrate are higher than for the
thermally concentrated juice and conrms results already obtained under similar conditions (Shaw, Lebrun,
Dornier, Ducamp, Courel, & Reynes, 2000).
As far as biochemical properties are concerned, OE
concentrate at 60 g TSS/100 g was comparable with juice
thermally concentrated at 49 g TSS/100 g, as is sold in
the market (Table 1). Directly comparing the results
expressed in kg of TSS, we show that the OE-concentrate had the added advantage of retaining almost all the
vitamin C content of the original juice because of the
low processing temperature.

4. Conclusions

Fig. 6. Sensorial prole of dierently processed juices made from

passion fruit.

Osmotic evaporation readily concentrates a claried

juice up to 60 g TSS/100 g, a value that is higher than is
obtained with other low temperature concentration
techniques. When juice concentration reaches 40 g TSS/
100 g, evaporation ux is only 12% less than the ow
rate initially registered with water. Continuous OE with
constant extraction of concentrate and feeding with extemporarily processed, fresh, claried juice is more hygienic and performs well. The same procedure can be
done at 60 g TSS/100 g, although the evaporation rate is
33% less than the evaporation rate obtained with water.
Nonetheless, by implementing a two-stage process, the
average overall eciency of OE can be maintained at
around 0.62 kg h1 m2 when concentrating claried

Table 1
Comparison of the main physico-chemical characteristics of the initial claried passion fruit juice, osmotic evaporation and thermal concentrates
Characteristic

Unit

Initial juice

OE concentrate

Thermal concentrate

Total soluble solids (TSS)

pH (20C)
Vitamin C

g/100 g

14
3.1
11.4
781
59
4.0
0.99
1.3
1043

60
2.8
60
769
350
4.5
0.81
1500
1300

49
2.7
5.3
86
260
4.2
0.90
32
1255

Titratable acidity
Water activity (25C)
Viscosity (25C)
Density

mg/100 mL
mg/kg TSS
meq/100 mL
eq/kg TSS
mPa s
kg m3

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F. Vaillant et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 47 (2001) 195202

juice from 14 to 60 g TSS/100 g. Quality of the OE

concentrate was signicantly better preserved than for
the thermal concentrate.
Evaporation ux obtained at 40 and 60 g TSS/100 g
are, respectively, 0.65 and 0.50 kg h1 m2 , which is
nonetheless low when compared with reverse osmosis
where uxes are almost 10 times higher. These low
values can be probably explained by the high membrane
thickness (800 lm). The hydrophobic membrane used in
this study was not optimised for this application because
in the laboratory, evaporation uxes that were from 10
to 20 times higher, have been attained with other
membrane (Courel et al., 2000).
Even so, we could see how OE can be applied on an
industrial level and thus be a genuine alternative for
concentrating thermosensitive products to the high
concentration values required by markets with less
changes of the original nutritional and sensorial qualities. Further developments of OE applications now need
the input of membrane manufacturers to design industrial modules with hydrophobic membranes that are
much more suited to the process.

Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank Victor Amu R. for his
valuable technical help, Passicol S.A. (Chinchina, Colombia), Colciencias (Colombia) and the French Embassy in Santa Fe de Bogota for providing this project
with nancial assistance.

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