Ultrafiltration for clarification of Valencia orange juice: Comparison of two flat sheet membranes on quality of juice production

The aim of this study is to clarify of moroccan valencia orange juice by ultrafiltration (uf) using two flat sheet membranes characterized by different membrane materials (polyethersulfone (pes) and polysulfone (ps)) with molecular weight cut-off (mwco) 30 and 20 kda respectively. the performance of selected membranes was investigated in terms of selectivity and productivity towards total phenolic content (tpc),pectin content (ais),total soluble solids (tss),total flavonoids content (tfc),suspended solids (ss),ascorbic acid (aa),and total antioxidant activity (taa). according to the results,both selected membranes allowed preserving of the original composition whereas the suspended solids and pectin content were completely removed. however,the pes membrane was the most suitable membrane for the clarification of the juice. in optimized operating conditions this membrane exhibited permeate flux of 71.14 l/m2h and steady-state flux of 27.43 l/m2h which was higher than ps membrane. rejections towards tpc,aa,tfc and taa for pes membrane were of the order of 10.1%,6.2%,11.32% and 9.85%,respectively. these values were lower than those determined for ps membrane. © 2017,university of mohammed premier oujda morocco.