Effects of aqueous ozone treatment on the nutritional attributes of mango (Mangifera indica L.) fruit juice

The global fruit juice market is expanding alongside the exponentially growing demand for a healthy lifestyle. Fruit juice is a preferred drink among all age groups as it contains numerous essential nutrients that benefit human health. The safety aspects of fruit juice are equally important as its healthy features. The conventional method of thermal pasteurisation has been known to produce fruit juice of inferior quality. Hence, ozone is being considered as an alternative, non-thermal form of pasteurisation. With its strong oxidation potential, ozone exhibits antimicrobial characteristics and produces no toxic by-products. However, for ozone to be successfully adopted by juice producers, the synergistic effects of the composition of fruit juice and ozone treatment must be adequately evaluated. Therefore, the present work subjected various concentrations of Chokanan mango juice (MJ), diluted with distilled water (DW) at 100MJ:0DW, 75MJ:25DW, and 50MJ:50DW to aqueous ozone treatment at different ozone doses. The effects of these treatments on the physicochemical and antioxidant properties of the MJ were evaluated. Ozone was found to be effective in decreasing the pectin methylesterase (PME) activity arising from the de-esterification of the pectin molecules, and increasing the DPPH activity, thereby increasing the juice quality. Significant effects on the total colour difference (Delta E) and total phenolic content (TPC) were observed in proportion to the increases in ozone dose. The colour of the treated MJ was found to be positively correlated with the TPC, while a kinetic study was performed to investigate the proportionality of the colour and TPC degradation. The first-order reaction model fitted well with the degradation patterns of L* and b*, as well as the Delta E of the MJ samples. A significant difference was observed between the degradation rate constant (k-value) for the MJ samples, which suggested that the k-value could have been affected by not only the ozone dose, but also the juice matrix. The present work demonstrated that the composition of fruit juice was an essential intrinsic parameter that must be assessed before adopting ozone as a form of non-thermal pasteurisation to produce fruit juice which is stable in quality, and safe for consumption.