Journal of Food Processing & Technology

Ion exclusion chromatography a potentially valuable tool for fractionation of complex fluids: Juice de-acidification as a case study

International Conference and Exhibition on Food Processing & Technology

November 22-24, 2012 Hyderabad International Convention Centre, India

Nikolaos E Mavroudis

Accepted Abstracts: J Food Process Technol

Abstract:

The need of separating fraction(s) rich in a specific compound/ingredient is a common theme in both food and nutritional sciences. In food science the emphasis is more on the development of cost effective industrial scale separation processes that yield desired fraction specifications. In nutritional science the emphasis is more on obtaining fractions rich in specific compounds from given sources (e.g. fruits, vegetables, botanicals) for delineating the role of those compounds on disease prevention.Ion Exclusion Chromatography, IEC, has applications from laboratory to industrial scale separations. Coupling IEC with advanced design chemical engineering approaches for industrial chromatography has the potential to be a valuable tool for fulfilling the needs of food scientists and nutritionists. In this study the basic mechanisms of IEC are presented and we aim to explore the feasibility of IEC for juice de-acidification in batch mode and in continuous Simulating Moving Bed (SMB) mode. De-acidification of apple, orange & beetroot juice is investigated at 2 elution speeds using only RO-water as eluent. When IEC is practiced on batch mode our results showed complete separation of key acids for each commodity to be feasible only at 2.5ml/ min flow rate. When data were subjected to Mazzoti-Morbidelli SMB design theory, complete separation was predicted to be also feasible at elevated flow rates such as 5ml/min. These results provide a promising case study for fractionating complex fluids using a food grade resin and pure water as eluent, hence with minimum impact on naturalness and avoiding process-induced chemical alterations of the fractions isolated.

Biography :

Nikos Mavroudis has a PhD from Lund University, Sweden, post-doctorate studies at Unilever Colworth, UK and worked to Unilever Vlaardingen, NL as project leader in separation of functional ingredients. Since June 2010 Nikos joined Northumria university building and leading the laboratory of food engineering and separation of actives. Nikos has published 10 patents from his 9 years work in Unilever R&D. From his work in academia published 10 research articles in top food journals (being citied 185 times), submitted 2 patent filings while a consultant to Unilever R&D and has attracted ca ?0.6 million of research and innovation funds.