Sugar separation from juices and product thereof
AssigneeThe NutraSweet Company
InventorsHugh F. Black, Jr., Ronald G. Bray
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Sugar is separated from juices employing a membrane separation process that results in (i) a nutritious high Brix/acid (B/A) ratio juice fraction and (2) a low calorie, low B/A ratio content juice fraction. The low calorie juice fraction is sweetened with a high potency sweetener. The sugar separation process involves ultrafiltration, nanofiltration and optionally reverse osmosis techniques.
Claims23
A process for separating sugars from a fruit juice to form a high Brix/acid (B/A) ratio fruit juice fraction and a low Brix/acid (B/A) ratio fruit juice fraction which comprises:
- (a) passing a fruit juice through an ultrafiltration (UF) membrane to form:
- (i) a UF retentate comprising water, cloud, oil soluble flavors, oil soluble colors and pulp, and
- (ii) an UF permeate;
- (b) passing the UF permeate from step (a) through a nanofiltration (NF) membrane that has a low permeability to fruit juice sugars to form
- (i) an NF retentate having a high sugar content and
- (ii) an NF permeate having a low sugar content;
- (c) optionally concentrating the NF permeate to remove water:
- (d) optionally recirculating the removed water from step (c) to any other step in said process;
- (e) adding a portion of the UF retentate from step (a) to the high sugar content NF retentate of step (b) to form a high B/A ratio fruit juice fraction;
- and
- (f) adding a portion of the UF retentate from step (a) to the low sugar content NF permeate of step (b) or to the concentrated low sugar content composition of step (c) to form a low B/A ratio fruit juice fraction whereby the high B/A ratio fruit juice fraction and the low B/A ratio fruit juice fraction resemble natural fresh juice with the major exception of the sugar content.
A process of making a low B/A ratio fruit juice composition which comprises:
- (a) passing a fruit juice through an ultrafiltration membrane to form:
- (i) an UF retentate comprising cloud, water, oil soluble flavors, oil soluble colors and pulp and
- (ii) an UF permeate;
- (b) passing the UF permeate from step (a) through a nanofiltration membrane that has a low permeability to fruit juice sugars to remove sugars from the UF permeate resulting in
- (i) a high sugar content NF retentate and
- (ii) a low sugar content NF permeate;
- (c) optionally concentrating the low sugar content NF permeate of step (b) to remove water;
- and
- (d) adding all or a portion of the UF retentate of step (a) to the low sugar content NF permeate of step (b) or the water reduced composition of step (c) to form a low B/A ratio fruit juice composition.
A sweetened low B/A ratio fruit juice composition which comprises:
- (a) a high potency sweetener or a mixture of high potency sweeteners in an amount effective to sweeten said composition and
- (b) a low B/A ratio fruit juice wherein the fruit juice sugars have been reduced by a membrane separation process wherein the fruit juice retains substantially all of the characteristics of natural juice with the exception that the sugar content is reduced by at least about 50 percent.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.