Citrus juice debittering

Process Layout

Bitterness in citrus juice is primarily due to the presence of polyphenols, furanolactones and flavonoids such as limonin, naringin and hesperidin. These bitter components can be effectively removed by using a selective adsorption process.

Cloudy juices contain generally a certain amount of fibres which might block the resin bed, which can act like a filter. Therefore the turbidity shall be limited to 0.5-1% maximum, too high solids are clogging the resin beds too fast and lead to a high pressure drop over the resin bed. The length of the fibres shall not exceed 0.5-0.7 mm to prevent the build-up of a filter cake on top of the resin bed.

The columns have a simple inlet and outlet system to allow the solids to pass through but keeping the resins in the column. Generally these columns have a dished end. During backwash, air or nitrogen is blown into the resin bed to allow the solids to desorb from the adsorbents and leave the resin bed on top of the column¹.

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¹TREVER®|SORB ADS320 polymeric adsorbent can also be used in common cloudy juice systems with external resin cleaning
²Typical values.