The Amazonian fruit camu-camu called the attention of the scientific community due to its high content of vitamin C. The fruit juice consists in an alternative to increase its conservation and consumption. Membrane separation technologies are conducted in mild temperature and pressure operational conditions, preserving the thermosensitive compounds and quality of the final product. This study aimed to investigate the performance of microfiltration process for obtention of clarified camu-camu juice by evaluating the effect of the temperature on vitamin C retention, total phenolics content and total antioxidant activity of the product. The process conducted at 45 °C showed best retention of vitamin C compared to the other evaluated temperatures. In this case, the average permeate flux was 75 Lh-1m-2. It was verified that clarification of camu-camu pulp requires a pretreatment of the pulp juice to ensure a high flux of permeate, and thus increase the process efficiency. It was also observed that, if volumetric concentration factor is increased while maintaining the same processing time, the content of the evaluated compounds is not significantly affected in the clarified juice.
Tropical fruit; Vitamin C; Antioxidant activity; Membrane separation process
