Pulsed electric field enhanced ultrafiltration of synthetic and fruit juice

An experimental investigation of electric field assisted clarification of synthetic juice (a mixture of pectin and sucrose) and mosambi (Citrus Sinensis (L.) Osbeck) juice using a 30 kDa molecular weight cut-off membrane in cross-flow ultrafiltration mode under laminar flow regime is reported herein. Electric field is applied in both continuous as well as pulse mode. Application of d.c. electric field has resulted in significant enhancement of permeate flux. It has been found that use of pulsed electric field is more advantageous in terms of less energy consumption, no property variations of the permeate and retentate streams and equally effective in terms of flux enhancement as compared to continuous field. A gel polarization model is proposed incorporating continuous as well as pulsed electric field and numerically solved to quantify the permeate flux. Experimental flux values are successfully compared with results from the numerical solution of the model under various operating conditions.