Freezing pretreatment

Eshtiaghi, M.N., Stute, R., and Knorr, D. High-pressure and freezing pretreatment effects on drying, rehydration, texture and color of green beans, carrots and potatoes, /. Food Sci., 59, 1168,1994. 

Vacuum deaeration and infiltration techniques have been used as freezing pretreatments to prevent enzymatic browning in apple slices by replacing tissue gases with aqueous solutions of sucrose and/or AA (43-44). Vacuum infiltration of solutions into apple slices resulted in a translucent or waterlogged appearance which would not be acceptable in a raw product (45). 

Dong and Sun adopted a combination of surfactant and hypochlorite process for extraction of PHB. By this method, polymer can be extracted to a purity of 98%. In this method, a freezing pretreatment was also used for cell lysis. The main advant es of this method are its low operating cost and hmited degradation of polymer. 

Pretreatment of Suspensions. Another important aspect of soHd—Hquid separation is conditioning or pretreatment of the feed suspension to alter some important property of the suspension and improve the performance of a separator that follows. A conditioning effect is obtained using several processes such as coagulation and docculation, addition of inert filter aids, crystalliza tion, freezing, temperature or pH adjustment, thermal treatment, and aging. The first two operations are considered in more detail due to their importance and wide use. 

Where the available water has a high proportion of solids, there are methods either of pretreating the water or, by agitating the water in the centre of the block (which freezes last), of removing the concentrated dirty water before it becomes solid. The core is then refilled with fresh water [30]. 

Figure 2.3 illustrates a process in which the outer layer of a product is quickly frozen as a congealed crust. These CRUSToFREEZE plants have a capacity between 1500 and 5000 kg/h and require 0.5 to 0.8 kg LN2 pro kg of product, which has to be frozen totally on a conveyor belt. Figure 2.4 shows the product exit of the plant in Fig. 2.3. The freeze drying of coffee and tea extracts, fruit pulps or small pieces of meat require a multi- stage pretreatment. The granulated end product from coffee and tea extracts should have a defined grain size, a desired color, and a predetermined density. Fruit pulps should become granulated, with the appearance of fruit pieces, while meat pieces should not stick together like a small meat ball, but be recognized as single pieces when presented in a meal.

Microwave-assisted (0.1 or 0.2 Wg-1) convection drying was also applied to osmotically dehydrated blueberries, leading to dried berries that were comparable to freeze-dried ones in much shorter time (Venkatachalapathy and Raghavan, 1998). Frozen blueberries were also dried in a microwave and spouted bed combined dryer (MWSB) after a pretreatment using ethyl oleate and a NaOH dipping solution followed by sucrose osmotic treatment (Feng et al., 1999). Osmotic dehydration prevented the blueberries from... 

FIG. 15 Texture modification (percentage of raw fruit texture) and protopectin content (mg/100 g wet weight) before (BF) and after (AF) freezing of strawberry slices not pretreated (NT) or air dried at 80 °C up to 60% weight reduction without (AD) or following 60-min osmotic dehydration (OAD) in 60% (w/w) sucrose solution at 25 °C at atmospheric pressure (Brimar, 2002). 

Pretreatment of biological samples for surfactant analysis is usually straightforward and includes either homogenising with anhydrous sodium sulphate or freeze-drying. Below, the sample treatment methods for extraction and clean-up of non-ionic and anionic surfactants in biota that have been encountered in the literature are reviewed. 

The migration order of wine anthocyanins in CE has been studied in detail and the results have been compared with those obtained by RP-HPLC-MS. Wines were filtered and used for the analyses without any other pretreatment. Wine samples of 10 ml were freeze-dried, redissolved in methanol and applied for semi-preparative fractionation. CZE measurements were carried out in a fused-silica capillary (46 cm effective length, 75 /an i.d.). The capillary was conditioned with 0.1 M NaOH (2 min), water (2 min) and running buffer (5 min). The buffer consisted of 50 mM sodium teraborate (pH = 8.4) containing 15 per cent (v/v)... 

Before the extraction procedure may commence, the sample must be prepared in such a way that it is in a condition for extraction of the analyte(s). For analyzing sulfonamide residues in liquid samples such as milk, a pretreatment dilution step with water prior to direct fluorometric detection may be required (207). Dilution of milk with aqueous buffer (208) or sodium chloride solution (209) prior to sample cleanup has also been reported. For the analysis of honey a simple dissolution of the sample in water (210, 211) or aqueous buffer (212) is generally required. Semisolid samples such as muscle, kidney, and liver, require, however, more intensive sample pretreatment. The analyte(s) must be exposed to extracting solvents to ensure maximum extraction. The most popular approach for tissue break-up is through use of a mincing and/or homogenizing apparatus. Lyophilization (freeze-drying) of swine kidney has been carried out prior to supercritical-fluid extraction of trimethoprim residues (213). 

In some cases, fractional freezing is more effective than distillation after chemical pretreatment, because thermal decomposition of solvents, caused by distillation, can be avoided. Fractional freezing has been employed in purifying DM SO (mp 18.5 °C), pyridine (mp —41.6°C) and HMPA (mp 7.2 °C). 

Particular attention should be paid to identifying any high freezing point components in the low-Btu gas. There exists a range of absorption and adsorption processes to pretreat the low-Btu gas to remove these undesirable components. 

---