A comparative study on pomegranate juice concentration by osmotic distillation and thermal evaporation processes

A comparative study was performed on the concentration of pomegranate juice by the osmotic distillation (OD) and thermal evaporation processes. Nanofibrous polyether-block-amid (PEBA) membrane was prepared by the electrospinning technique, and the influence of operating parameters on the performance of the OD process was studied. The experimental results indicated that an increase in the temperature difference led to higher water flux, while a higher feed temperature resulted in undesirable color changes in the concentrate product. A comparison between the OD and evaporation processes revealed that the OD concentrate product had better quality than the evaporation product in terms of aroma and phenolic compounds retention. Furthermore, an economic analysis was performed by COMFAR III software to compare the OD and evaporation processes for the concentration of the pomegranate juice. It was also found that both OD and evaporation processes were feasible, although the evaporation process was more favorable in terms of the economic efficiency.