TECHNOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF THE PHILIPPINES – MANILA

DEPARTMENT OF CHEMICAL ENGINEERING

CHEMICAL ENGINEERING CALCULATIONS 1

PRODUCTION OF TOMATO PASTE

FROM FRESH AND RAW TOMATOES

In completion of the Course Outcome in Chemical Process Calculations,

A Design of the Complete Material Balance

Presented by the group members:

DELA CRUZ, Christian

PADILLA, Alex

MAGALSO, Angeline

OLIVEROS, Paula

DE VERA, Erika Joy

MIRABELES, Mean Jann

ECHAVEZ, Mariah

GAELA, Rin

GUEVARRA, Christine

Submitted to:

Engr. Isiah B.A. Ventilacion, ChE

March, 2019
I. INTRODUCTION

In recent months, there has been an excessive supply of

tomatoes in our country. And when this happens, the remaining unused
tomato are subject to spoilage in a short amount of time. News of this
phenomena have surfaced around last year where it has been reported
that farmers harvesting excessive amounts of tomatoes are unable to
gain profit nor utilize them due to its lack of practical use. To hinder this
worsening phenomena, the researchers introduce the concept of
instead of throwing away these unused tomatoes and be non-
profitable, these extra supplies of tomato can be made into a tomato
paste which can be marketable and a source of profit.

Tomato paste is a thick paste made from ripened tomatoes.

Tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum) is a commercially important
vegetable throughout the world both for the fresh fruit market and the
processed food industries (Atherton and Rudich, 1986).Tomatoes may
be consumed fresh or processed to canned whole peeled tomatoes. It
may also be processed to produce juice, concentrated tomato juice,
puree or paste. Mainly controlled by the amount of pectin, total soluble
solids, and size distributions of insoluble constitute (Luh and Kean,
1998).

A similar study concerning with the process of converting fresh,

raw and uncontaminated tomatoes have been done by Oduok et al. in
2014. According to their study, the main processing steps in the
production of a tomato paste include washing, sorting, trimming,
breaking, juice extraction, concentration, pasteurization, filling and
cooking. After washing and sorting, tomatoes are chopped and
subjected to cold break or hot break. During juice extraction, the
heated tomato pulp is passed through two extractors. The type of
extractors (paddle or screw) and screen size of extractors affect the
quality of the final product in particular its texture and consistency.
II. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The production of tomato paste requires the use of fresh,

matured, uncontaminated tomatoes especially without infected bruises,
and must be of high quality (good species), stated by Adegbola (2012).
All raw food and materials should be handled with care in order to
avoid bruises and damages. Foods should be kept off the ground and
protected from insects. Raw materials should be kept cool by storing
them away from sunlight. Bruised but not infected tomatoes can also
be processed but putting in mind that bruises encourage infestation.

Fenco (2014) gave a detailed description of the processing

steps in production of tomato paste as outline in this subsection:Fresh
tomatoes arrives at the plant in trucks are unloaded into a collection
channel (also known as flume), a stainless steel or cement duct into
which a quantity of water 2 to 3 times higher than the amount of
unloaded tomato is continuously pumped. For example, a 10 tons/hour
rate requires at least 30m3/hour of water.

The tomatoes then arrive at the sorting station where 5% of the

weight will be discarded as culls (Saravacos and Kostaropoulos, 2003),
after having been rinsed under a clean water spraying system
(preferably drinking water). Here, the staff removes the green,
damaged and excessively small tomatoes which are placed on a reject
conveyor (or an auger) and then collected in a large box or directly
inside a truck to be taken away. The tomatoes suitable for processing
are transported to the chopping station (this may be a hammer mill or a
special mono-pump provided with pre-feeding screw) where they are
chopped. Then the crushed tomato is fed into an electrically driven
mechanical pulper. This separates the juice from seeds and skins. The
tomatoes are rubbed against a perforated drum by two brushes which
are fixed to the central shaft driven directly by the motor. The juice
passes through the perforated drum into the outer stationary drum and
collected through an outlet. The remaining seeds and skins are pushed
out through an outlet connected to the inner perforated drum. (Practical
Action, 2015)

The 6.5 wt% of the crushed tomatoes known as the pomace

(FAO, 2009) containing 80% moisture (Feedipedia, 2015) enters a
refining station where further juice is recovered which will rejoin with
the unrefined chopped and crushed tomatoes at the homogenzing
machine. The products are forced through the homogenizing valve
producing changes in the particle structures. These mechanisms relate
to the changes in the structure of an aqueous tomato dispersion
caused by the application of mechanical energy (GEA, 2015). After
this, they proceed to an evaporator which involves the removal of water
from the juice to have a desired product containing 75% water and
25% solids and serves a main purpose, improve microbiological
stability with reduction of water activity, which is the predominant factor
in most organic degradation processes.

III. STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

A feed of fresh, matured and uncontaminated tomatoes is to be

made into a tomato paste composed of 75% water and 25% solids. A
100kg feed composed of 93% water and 7% solids is to be washed
with 200kg of pure water then proceeds to a sorting machine where 5%
of its weight will be removed. After passing through a crushing
machine, the tomatoes are sliced and enters a pulper where its
pomace (6.5% of its weight containing 80% moisture) is refined and
added to the homogenizing machine. The remains bypasses the
refining process and proceeds to the homogenizing machine. As they
combine, it will enter an evaporator where 100% water will be
evaporated.