Recovery of aroma compounds from tomato industry effluent using membrane-based solvent extraction Original Research Article

This work focuses on a non-destructive process for recovering valuable aromatic fractions from an odorous tomato industry aqueous effluent. Non-dispersive solvent extraction of four selected aroma compounds, chosen as key aroma, was, at first, carried out on very diluted model aqueous solutions. Mass transfers from water to n-hexane and from water to Miglyol (two solvents widely used in aromatic industry) were studied using a cross-flow designed hollow fibre membrane contactor. The influence of physico-chemical properties of the aroma compounds studied and the influence of the solvent viscosity on mass transfer are discussed. The results obtained with model solutions have been validated on the industrial process effluent.