Aplicação de campos elétricos pulsados de alta intensidade na conservação do suco de laranja

Abstract

In the search for fresh or minimally processed products, a need for adaptation in the food industry was created and new technologies have been studied and tested. Fresh products have a very short shelf life and to be microbiologically stabilized thermal processes such as pasteurization are usually used. This causes several microbiological reductions limited by the process temperature since thermoduric microorganisms are resistant to thermal processes. In addition, heat can alter the organoleptic and nutritional characteristics of the food. Currently, non-thermal treatments that maintains the main sensory and microbiological safety features are being pointed out as an efficient and low-cost solution. In this context, the treatment by high intensity pulsed electric fields (PEF) is one of the most promising for the microbiological and enzymatic inactivation of liquid foods. Among liquid foods, orange juice is one of the most important as Brazil is the largest producer and exporter of orange juice in the world. However, the biggest production is of the concentrated juice even though Brazilians appreciate much more the natural one which has a very short shelf life at most three days. This graduation project presents the basic concepts of PEF processing and a comparison with thermal processes. It's followed by a proposal for the creation of an orange juice industry that uses PEF as a microbiological and enzymatic stabilization process to produce an orange juice with the same characteristics of fresh juice and with an estimated shelf life of twenty-one days.