Efficiency enhancing methods pretreatments

Pulsed electric field is another alternative to conventional methods of extraction. PEF enhances mass transfer rates using an external electrical field, which results in an electric potential across the membranes of matrix cells that minimizes thermal degradation and changes textural properties. PEF has been considered as a nonthermal pretreatment stage used to increase the extraction efficiency, increasing also permeability throughout the cell membranes. 

In the work of Uchida et al., using the mutual (simultaneous) irradiation method in the absence of a photosensitizer, polyacrylamide has been grafted onto the surface of a poly(ethylene terephthalate) (PET) film so as to enhance the low water wettability of PET [85], The PET film immersed in a 10wt% deaerated solution of acrylamide in water has turned out to be very hydrophilic upon UV irradiation. A pretreatment with benzyl alcohol was carried out to increase the monomer diffusion into the PET matrix, also increasing the grafting efficiency. 

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