Écoconception de nutraceutiques/aliments fonctionnels et augmentation de leurs valeurs ajoutées par procédés électromembranaires

Today, the agri-food sector does not only have to "feed" people, but it also has to respond to new issues in regard to health-foods. The development of innovating processes for production and transformation of nutraceuticals and functional foods (NFFs) requires to evaluate the societal (consumers health) and environmental (eco-design) impacts. This research project comes together with the Industrial Research Chair (IRC) program accepted by NSERC in February 2016 and aiming at the eco-design of bio-food production lines by using electromembrane processes (answer for December 15th 2015.
In this context, the aim of the present research project proposed to CRIBIQ’s 34th call for project is to use electromembrane approaches to optimize bio-food production lines, minimizing their environmental impact and increasing added value to end products. Thus, the research objectives are to 1) Study the fonctional properties of caseins and caseinates produced by electrodialysis with bipolar membranes coupled with an ultrafiltration module (EDBM-UF), 2) Test at a semi-pilot scale ionic filtration membranes for the demineralisation by electrodialysis (ED) of food solutions, 3) Study in-vitro the impact of cranberry juice desacidification by bipolar membrane electrodialysis (EDBM) on dentine sensibility and bacteria responsible for gengivite and, 4) Perform an in-vivo study on mices of peptide fractions from fish hydrolysate after electrodialysis with filtration membrane (EDFM) separation.
In addition to these results on eco-efficiency improvement, this project could lead to the marketing of new unique products with scientifically demonstrated health benefits. The anticipated economic consequences at long term will be more than 10 million dollars/year and the creation of more than 15 new jobs.