Alternative to evaporation for food and beverage processors

With applications in beverages such as fruit juices, dairy products, proteins, water treatment and any application where water is removed, forward osmosis (FO) has lots of potential in the food and beverage industry.

US company Porifera and CSIRO are collaborating to develop FO technology for food applications.

What is forward osmosis?

FO mimics water transport by plants, where fresh water is drawn by osmotic pressure into the plant through its roots in the soil.

In FO water molecules migrate by diffusion, without energy input, into a more concentrated ‘draw solution’. Energy for the process is supplied by osmotic pressure difference of the two solutions.

The dynamics of FO are opposite of reverse osmosis, which requires energy to overcome the osmotic pressure difference.

FO costs significantly less to implement and operate than its main competitor technology, evaporation.

Preliminary estimates show that the capital costs of FO can be less than 70% and operating costs less than 60% of those for evaporation. As a result, FO can be installed on-farm, not just in-factory, thus also reducing transportation costs.

As the technology is based on osmotic pressure, it doesn’t use heat so concentrates are of higher functionality and quality. Aroma compounds and nutritional attributes, for example, are retained more than in evaporation, which does use heat.

• FO membranes remove salts, xenobiotics, bacteria, small organics and other contaminants.
• FO membranes are low fouling: foulants do not compact on surfaces like UF and RO (no cake layer).
• FO requires lower energy for certain processes.
• FO can recover useful products from brine or waste streams while also purifying water for re-use.

First commercial unit in Australia

The potential of the technology is being explored at CSIRO’s food innovation centre in Werribee, which has the first commercial unit in Australia.

CSIRO and Porifera aim to fast-track the development of specific FO applications that meet the needs of the food industry and provide opportunities for current and new processes and products.

A range of potential product application opportunities, from on-farm applications for dairy farms, increasing efficiency in in-factory manufacturing of existing products to improving ingredient functionality for yoghurts, cheeses, flavours, heat-sensitive bioactives and more, is being investigated.

Image credit: ©stock.adobe.com/au/cosma