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www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng
Received 6 September 2006; received in revised form 14 December 2006; accepted 15 December 2006
Available online 11 January 2007
Abstract
Apple juice, extracted from golden delicious fruits, was pasteurized using a pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment and compared with a
conventional high temperature-short time (HTST) method. The PEF treatment was carried out using a PEF laboratory unit, set with a
bipolar pulse (4 ls wide), an intensity of 35 kV/cm, and a frequency of 1200 pulses per second (pps). The thermal pasteurization was
performed at 90 °C for 30 s with an adapted laboratory set-up. Effects of variables of both treatments on pH, total acidity, phenolics
content, and volatile compounds were investigated. While minimal variability was observed in pH and no significant changes were
detected in acidity, phenolics content and volatile compounds concentration showed statistical significant differences between treatments.
In general, these measured variables were less affected by the PEF treatment than by the thermal pasteurization.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Apple juice; Thermal pasteurization; High voltage pulsed electric fields (PEF); High temperature-short time (HTST) pasteurization; Sensory
attributes
0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2006.12.011
42 S.F. Aguilar-Rosas et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 83 (2007) 41–46
quality foods. PEF treatment is conducted at ambient tem- looking at effects on physicochemical properties and some
perature for a short time (in microseconds), and energy lost sensory attributes, with results also being promising. For
due to heating of foods is minimized (Jeyamkondan, Jayas, example, Evrendilek et al. (2000) reported no apparent
& Holley, 1999). changes in physical and chemical properties directly caused
In terms of microbial safety and energy efficiency, a by PEF treatment in apple juice and cider, while Barbosa-
study of PEF inactivation demonstrated that, for achieving Canovas, Pothakamury, Palou, and Swanson (1998) found
a seven log reduction in survivability of Saccharomyces that pH and vitamin C concentration were not significantly
cerevisiae in apple juice, PEF utilized less than 10% of affected by PEF treatment of fresh apple juice and apple
the electric energy for heat treatment (Qin, Zhang, Barb- juice reconstituted from concentrate. There is, however, a
osa-Cánovas, Swanson, & Pedrow, 1994). It has also been dearth of information in the literature related to actual
reported (Mittal, 1998) that a PEF low energy pulser with effects of PEF on composition of volatile chemical com-
an instant-charge-reversal pulse waveform was successfully pounds responsible for odour and flavour of apple juice.
used in apple cider treatment. The consumed energy was as There are neither many direct comparisons of PEF and
low as 5.76 J/ml at 20 °C, compared with the 50 kJ/kg nor- HTST treatments, in terms of quality attributes in general.
mally required in conventional thermal processing. Micro- This paper presents an investigation of a direct comparison
bial inactivation, coupled with quality retention, has also of PEF and HTST in pasteurization of apple juice, focused
been reported for apple juice pasteurization using non- on retention of volatile compounds, which have been iden-
thermal methods of preservation (Ortega-Rivas, Zárate- tified as responsible for its characteristic aroma and tasteful
Rodrı́guez, & Barbosa-Cánovas, 1998). A comparison of flavour.
ultrafiltration (UF) and PEF in apple juice pasteurization
reported six log reductions in survivability of total aerobic 2. Materials and methods
micro-organisms using the indigenous flora of the juice
(Ortega-Rivas et al., 1998). In terms of quality aspects, sol- Freshly squeezed apple juice, from golden delicious
uble solids, pH and acidity were reported practically apple variety, was extracted with a domestic juice extrac-
impaired by both techniques. Colour, however, suffered tor. The juice was pre-filtered across a bag filter and stored
changes such as browning for UF and fading for PEF (Ort- at 4 °C prior to treatment.
ega-Rivas et al., 1998; Zárate-Rodrı́guez, Ortega-Rivas, & For conventional heat treatment, an experimental set-up
Barbosa-Cánovas, 2000). was constructed (Fig. 1). As can be observed, it consisted of
Flavour components in apple juice are numerous, and sanitary containers to hold heating and cooling fluids, coils
flavour identification is considered quite complex due to for juice passage, a centrifugal sanitary pump to circulate
the aromatic nature of apples. Eight odour-active volatiles the juice, and thermocouples to record the temperature.
have been, however, identified as the most important con- A pasteurization temperature of 90 °C was tested for a
tributors for the aroma–flavour authenticity of apple juice holding time of 30 s, which was virtually the maximum
(Cunningham, Acree, Barnard, Butts, & Braell, 1986). range suggested in the literature (Moyer & Aitken, 1980).
Apparently, there are not reported studies of PEF effects Also, it was sufficient to achieve pasteurization conditions
on volatile compounds in apple juice. Several reports have using Lactobacillus brevis and S. cerevisiae, common spoil-
appeared for orange juice (Jia, Zhang, & Min, 1999; Yeom, age micro-organisms in apple juice, as contaminating spe-
Streaker, Zhang, & Min, 2000) focusing on effects of PEF cies. As shown in Fig. 2, inoculates of L. brevis and S.
on quality aspects. The PEF-treated juice was compared cerevisiae, expressed in colony forming units per millilitre
with juice pasteurized by heat at 94.6 °C for 30 s. The juice (cfu/ml) were properly reduced.
treated by PEF retained greater amounts of vitamin C and A high voltage pulsed electric field unit, designed and
some representative flavour compounds, than the juice pas- constructed at Ohio State University (Columbus, OH,
teurized by heat during storage at 4 °C. In terms of specific USA) was used for the PEF treatment. As shown in
flavour compounds, it was found that 40% of decanal was Fig. 3, this test apparatus consists of a high voltage power
lost by heat treatment at 90 °C for 3 min while no loss was
observed by PEF treatment at 30 kV/cm, either at 240 or
480 ls (Jia et al., 1999). Octanal showed a loss of 9.9% Feed
for the heat treatment and 0% for any of the two PEF Product
treatments. Some compounds suffered losses for the PEF
treatments, but always in less proportion than the heat pas-
teurized juice. For example, 5.1% and 9.7% of ethyl buty-
rate were lost for the 240 ls and 480 ls treatments,
respectively, but 22.4% was lost in the thermal process
(Jia et al., 1999).
As discussed above, PEF has been challenged against
Pre-heating Holding Cooling
many spoiling micro-organisms in apple juice, with encour-
aging results. Also, pertaining quality, there are studies Fig. 1. Experimental set-up used for heat pasteurization of apple juice.
S.F. Aguilar-Rosas et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 83 (2007) 41–46 43
9 9
8 8
L. brevis
Initial count
7 7 S. cerevisiae
Final count
6 6
log(cfu/ml)
log(cfu/ml)
5 5
4 4
3 3
2 2
1 1
0 0
L. brevis S. cerevisiae 0 400 800 1200 1600
Microbial Inactivation by HTST Method Pulses per second of PEF treatment
Fig. 2. Inactivation of Lactobacillus brevis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae Fig. 4. Inactivation of Lactobacillus brevis and Saccharomyces cerevisiae
by HTST pasteurization (90 °C for 30 s). by PEF pasteurization (pulse frequency at 35 kV/cm).
dent t-test for independent samples was used. Means were 0.355
differentiated by Tukey’s tests. Significance of differences 0.35
was defined at p < 0.05. The tests were performed in tripli-
0.345
cate. The statistic system SAS Version 8 (SAS Institute
g malic acid/litre
Inc., Cary, NC, USA) was used for actual calculations. 0.34
0.335
3. Results and discussion
0.33
3.94 120
3.92
100
3.9
ppm of gallic acid
3.88 80
3.86
60
pH
3.84
3.82 40
3.8
20
3.78
3.76
0
3.74 Untreated PEF HTST
Untreated PEF HTST Treatment
Treatment
Fig. 7. Effect of treatment method on total phenol compounds of
Fig. 5. Effect of treatment method on pH of pasteurized apple juice. pasteurized apple juice.
S.F. Aguilar-Rosas et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 83 (2007) 41–46 45
lost of phenols (32.2%) when compared with the PEF treat- To the extent of the literature survey of this work,
ment, which only caused a 14.49% reduction. These results there are not reported studies of PEF effects on volatiles
agree with Spanos and Wrolstad (1992), who reported that in apple juice. As previously discussed, several reports
total phenol concentration is reduced up to 50% in apple have appeared for orange juice (Jia et al., 1999; Yeom
juice pasteurized thermally at 80 °C for 15 min. Gardner, et al., 2000) focusing on effects of PEF on quality aspects.
White, McPhail, and Duthie (2000) observed also consider- Although orange juice and apple juice are different prod-
able losses in phenolics in apple juice pasteurized by ther- ucts, the studies mentioned for orange juice, along with
mal means. Phenol compounds are secondary metabolites the results of this work, may be indicative of a definite
in plants known to play an important role in colour and evaporative effect of thermal pasteurization methods in
flavour development in fruit juices and wine. Phenols are fruit juice pasteurization in general. Thus, in a very broad
important constituents of pear, grapes and apple and way, it may be considered that non-thermal pasteurization
may be categorized into two groups: phenolic acids and techniques will represent a better choice for processing of
flavonoids (Spanos & Wrolstad, 1992). The combined fruit juices in general, and apple juice in particular. Vola-
odour–flavour characteristics in apple and apple products tile chemical compounds responsible for colour and fla-
are due in part to phenol compounds. Phenols are also used vour of fruit juices are retained in a highest ratio, when
as indicators of physiological state and potential damage in compared with fresh untreated samples, by the use of
quality of fruit products (Blanco, Fraga, & Mangas, 2001). non-thermal pasteurization techniques such as high volt-
Phenol compounds are, thus, important biochemical sub- age pulsed electric fields. PEF pasteurization of apple
stances in apple juice. Their lost or decrease in concentra- juice may be, therefore, considered a feasible alternative
tion will, therefore, impair seriously apple juice sensory for fruit processors, in order to obtain a premium quality
attributes. PEF treatment with minimal losses (Fig. 7) product.
would represent an obvious advantage over HTST pasteur-
ization, in terms of concentration of these chemicals in 4. Conclusions
apple juice.
As previously stated, the flavour of apple juice consists PEF, a thermal preservation technique to pasteurize
of many chemical compounds, but the literature indicates apple juice, proved to be efficient in microbial inactivation,
8–23 compounds most responsible for the odour–flavour as well as in preserving some quality attributes. Conven-
attribute (König & Schreier, 1999; Rao, Acree, Cooley, & tional HTST pasteurization, on the other hand, produced
Ennis, 1987). Eight volatile compounds were properly iden- significant losses in phenolic compounds and in volatiles
tified in the apple juice, fresh and processed by any of the responsible for flavour. PEF-treated juice retained better
treatments, in this work. Table 1 compares the percentage most of the volatile compounds responsible for colour
in concentration decrease for those mentioned volatiles in and flavour of the apple juice. Further studies on the chem-
the pasteurization methods investigated. All volatile con- istry of flavour components, to try to preserve them even
centrations showed statistical significant differences for better, are advisable. It is also recommended to use sensory
both treatments, as compared with the untreated sample, evaluation to define quality differences of apple juice trea-
by a Student t-test for independent samples (p < 0.05, ted by non-conventional methods. The use of PEF as an
n = 3). In all compounds, and particularly in one (ethyl alternative to heat pasteurization of apple juice may be
acetate), the decrease was considerable higher for the considered a strategically important action to obtain a sen-
HTST treatment than for the PEF method (Table 1). Some sory impaired product, highly competitive in global
of the volatiles in the PEF treatment were almost retained. markets.
Hexanal and hexyl acetate were only lost in 7% and 8.4%,
respectively. It is worth to mention (Table 1) that acetic Acknowledgements
acid was completely lost in HTST treatment.
An experimental part of this project was carried out at
the Department of Food Technology of University of
Table 1 Lleida, Spain. The authors wish to express their gratitude
Percentage of volatiles losses, compared with untreated sample, in apple for the assistance provided by technical and academic
juice treated by two methods staff. Funding for the project was provided by the Na-
Compound Loss percentage for PEF Loss percentage for HTST tional Council of Science and Technology (CONACyT,
Acetic acid 39.792 ± 20.84 100 México).
Hexanal 7.042 ± 9.32 62.348 ± 5.35
Butyl hexanoate 18.108 ± 7.72 36.273 ± 24.86 References
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