Biotech System Vies for Place in Juice Industry

Last week, Sepragen Corp. announced that it had granted a temporary license to Tropicana Products, Inc. for the evaluation of its technology, equipment, and patent-pending process toremove the bitterness and acidity from grapefruit juice.

The process, called SepraDebitt, utilizes Radial Flow Chromatography to remove the compounds responsible for citrus juice bitterness to very low levels. According to the company, the process also has significantly higher capacity per cycle and several times the throughput of the nearestcommercial process.

Since its founding in 1985, Sepragen has been developing and manufacturing liquid chromatography systems primarily for the biopharmaceutical industry. Recently, it has applied its expertise in large-scale separation to develop faster, more efficient separation for processes in the beverage, dairy, food, brewing, and environmental industries.

Chromatography is a chemical separations technology that results in higher purity separation than filtration. Chromatography is performed in tubular columns containing chemically coated porous beads. A liquid mixture containing the target molecules is pumped through the separations media to a collection channel at the bottom of the column. Asthe mixture flows through the column, only the target molecules bind to the surface of the separations media. Because the binding is chemical, not based on size, the separation process is exact and the resulting purity of the end product is high.

There are two types of liquid chromatography - axial and radial flow. In axial flow a liquid mixture is pumped vertically through the tubular column. This method is adequate where small amounts of liquid are involved but presents problems in scale-up. In radial flow chromatography the flowof liquid is laterally from a sleeve surrounding a permeable column to a hollow cylinder at the center. (See drawing below.) Flow rates through the column are substantially higher, allowing economical processing of large volumes of material.

According to Vinit Saxena, founder, president, and CEO of Sepragen and RFC developer, "Larger cross-sectional areas make the flow path shorter, resulting in higher flow rates and more overall productivity."

Orange processing in both California and Florida results in unsqueezed juice that is too bitter to use. Additionally, oranges grown in California go through a period of months when they are too bitter to be processed into juice. If processors could use all of the juice in the orange, not justthat obtained in the first squeeze, improvement in economics would be considerable.

According to Saxena, "Orange processing today is inefficient and a meaningful portion of the juice is simply too bitter to use. By increasing yields, improving quality, and quite possibly increasing consumption of its products, we believe Sepragen's SepraDebitt process can add significant value to citrus juice growers and processors." .

For more information contact Sepragen Corp., 30689 Huntwood Dr. Hayward, CA 94545. Tel: 510-476-0650.