An apparatus for partial ice-melting to improve yield in progressive freeze-concentration

Abstract

a b s t r a c tA small test apparatus was made for partial melting of ice at controlled conditions in temperature and stirring speed. Ice cubes from 10 wt% sucrose were partially melted in this apparatus at 4 temperature and 4 stirring speeds. At the lower temperature with relatively faster stirring speed, the initially-melted fractions effectively contained the higher concentration of solute than the later-melted fractions. The partial ice-melting technique was combined with progressive freeze-concentration (PFC) to improve the yield in PFC. Apple juice with 13.7°Brix was concentrated up to 25.5°Brix by PFC using a tubular ice system. Then, the partial ice-melting was applied for the ice formed by PFC to improve the yield from 63.8% to 85% by recovering the initial 30% melted fraction. The partial ice-melting was also applied to pear (La France) juice flavor condensate. After 2.36 times concentration of flavor component (butyl acetate) by PFC, the yield was improved from 86.7% to 95% by recovering the initial 35% melted fraction in the partial ice-melting process. Partial ice-melting technique will overcome the major drawback of PFC, in which the yield decreases with an increase in solute concentration because of the solute inclusion in the ice.

Progressive freeze-concentration of apple juice and its application to produce a new type apple wine

“…By this system, 12.18L of the apple juice was concentrated, in about 2 hr's operation time, to 3.50L with concentration increased from 13.7 to 25.5 o Brix with a yield of 63.8%. In this case, the yield may not be satisfactory but this could be improved to the necessary level by applying the partial ice-melting technique (Miyawaki et al, 2012;Gunathilake et al, 2014b).…”

Review: Parametric Study on the Performance of Progressive Cryoconcentration System

“…As a result, this method requires a very complicated system as described before, which in turn makes the SC process as the most expensive separation method among the other concentration enhancement methods (Miyawaki et al, 2012;Gunathilake et al, 2014).…”

Water and Freezing in Food

“…To overcome this drawback, the application of partial ice-melting (PIM) in Fig. 14 to the ice formed after PFC was proved to be effective to improve yields in the process (Miyawaki et al, 2012;Gunathilake et al, 2014b), and an integrated system of PFC combined with PIM was established as shown in Fig. 19 (Miyawaki et al, 2016b).…”