Evaluation of pulsed electric field treatment on the overall quality of Phyllanthus emblica L. fruits and its juice

Phyllanthus emblica L. (PHA) has high nutritional and medicinal value, and current researches are mainly focused on the processing and preparation of PHA into juice products. The objective of this work was to investigate the overall effect of pulsed electric field (PEF) and thermal pretreatment on the texture of whole fruit as well as on the bioactivity and flavor attributes of extracted PHA fruit juices. The results showed that the selected PEF conditions (electric field strength 4 kV/cm, treatment time 150 s, pulse width 10 μs, and pulse frequency 40 Hz) significantly reduced the hardness, fracturability, springiness, and cohesiveness of PHA fruits. Compared with thermal treatment, PEF treatment resulted in a significant increase in the size and number of honeycomb pores in the microstructure of PHA, leading to a decrease in the thermal stability and a faster rate of thermal decomposition of the fruit. Both PEF and thermal treatments significantly increased juice yield and the total solids content, but thermal treatments led to a decrease in total phenol and total acid content. HPLC and GC-MS results showed that PEF treatment significantly enhanced the nutrient content (vitamin C, etc.) and the content of flavor esters of juice ( p <0.05), and ultimately boosted the DPPH free radical scavenging rate by 11.5% to 16.7%. Conclusively, PEF pretreatment can make the juicing process of PHA efficient by changing the cellular structure of PHA, and ultimately obtaining high quality juice with more nutrients. • PEF treatments significantly decreased hardness (↓47.3%) of PHA matrices. • Juice yield improved by 11% with PEF processing, enhancing extraction efficiency. • PEF boosted total phenolic/flavonoid content through cell membrane permeabilization. • Volatile esters surged by 52.9% in PEF-treated juice compared to the control group. • PEF group's antioxidant activity (via DPPH assay) surpassed conventional methods.