Performance of nanofiltration process during concentration of strawberry juice

The aim of this study was to evaluate the microfiltration and nanofiltration of strawberry juice. Processes performance was evaluated in terms of resistances-in-series, flux decline modeling and extract quality (maintenance of the phenolic compounds). The results obtained showed that concentration polarization is the main resistance to permeate flux in nanofiltration process, representing around 95% of the total resistance. Microfiltration process suffered more influence of the concentration polarization and fouling, next to 47% for both resistances. For all the processes, Hermia’s pore blocking models presented good fitting, with R(2) over 0.85. The same behavior was observed for a conjugated model which provided a realistic description (R(2) > 0.76). Also, nanofiltration process allowed phenolic compounds maintenance, demonstrating the efficiency of this process for strawberry juice concentration.