Pervaporation is a membrane separation process in which components from liquid mixtures are fractionated due to their partial vaporisation through a dense selective membrane. This process can be used to recover aroma compounds. The objective of this work was to evaluate the pervaporation to obtain a natural aroma extract from cashew apple fruit, which can be used as an additive in the food industry. Cashew pulp was used as raw material. Pervaporation was carried out at 25 and 35 °C using polymethylsiloxane membranes. Samples of the cashew juice in the beginning and at the end of the pervaporation and from the permeate were picked to characterise the aromatic profile by GC-MS. The pervaporation of the cashew juice presented a high permeate flux, 0.11 kgh-1m-2 and 0.17 kg.hm-2, at 25 and 35 °C, respectively. The chromatograms showed an increase in the number of compounds in the permeate samples when compared to the chromatograms of the cashew juice. By comparing the peak areas, it could be observed that almost 50% of the identified components in the permeate samples presented an increase in the peak area, showing the potentiality of this process to the concentration of the aroma of cashew apple juice.
membrane processes; tropical fruit juices; volatile compounds
