Experimental study of concentration of tomato juice by CO2 hydrate formation

Abstract

A new tomato juice concentration technology was presented by CO2 hydrate formation. The CO2 hydrate equilibrium conditions were measured by isochoric pressure search method and tomato juice concentration experiments were carried out in a high-pressure stirred reactor. Moreover, dehydration ratio was defined and CO2 hydrate formation rate constants were calculated with different feed pressure. The effects of feed pressure, temperature, and juice volume on dehydration ratio were investigated. The results show that the tomato juice used in this work nearly has no effect on CO2 hydrate phase equilibrium conditions, but can accelerate CO2 hydrate formation. And the dehydration ratio increased with increasing the feed pressure from 1.81 to 3.95 MPa, the maximum dehydration ratio can reach 63.2% with feed pressure of 3.95 MPa, and the optimum tomato juice volume is 80 mL. These results demonstrated that removal of water with the help of CO2 hydrate is an efficient technology for tomato juice concentration.nema