Modeling the Effect of Temperature on Brix Concentration of Tomato Juice during Vacuum Concentration

Concentrated tomato is produced typically from tomatoes by the conventional method of concentration. Recently, vacuum-concentration processes have been developed to concentrate and reduce the variation caused by high temperature. The aim of this study is to simulate water evaporation and change of tomato juice concentration during vacuum concentration. Mathematical and simulation models for vacuum condensate system are proposed and implemented. Matlab's ode45 function is used to solve differential equations and simulate systems. The effect of the concentration and condensate temperature on the Brix concentration of the solution was investigated based on the model. Experiments were carried out with 10kg of tomato juice, the initial Brix concentration was 4, with the concentration temperatures of 60 oC and 65 oC, resulting in the correlation coefficient R2 reaching 0.9624 and 0.9837, respectively. This result shows a high compatibility between simulation and experiments. The simulations accurately represent the kinetics of the concentration process and the change in temperature and Brix of tomato juice products in the concentration chamber.