The evolution of membrane technology in fruit juice production

Pressure-driven membrane operations, including microfiltration (MF), ultrafiltration (UF), nanofiltration (NF) and reverse osmosis (RO), represent the state-of-the-art technology for juice clarification, fractionation and concentration. In the last years, other membrane operations such as, membrane distillation (MD), osmotic distillation (OD) and pervaporation (PV) have been investigated for juice concentration and recovery of aroma compounds. The implementation of these processes in fruit juice processing industries, fits well with sustainable food processing (SFP) strategy, an integral part of the sustainable food supply chain and sustainable development based on the use of low energy, low-impact processing schemes to produce food with excellent quality and nutritional value close to (or better than) that of a fresh product.