ABSTRACT
In recent years there has been a lot of interest in functional foods and nutraceuticals, particularly their impact on human health and prevention of certain diseases. Manufacturers have responded to this sudden demand by releasing a large number of products. However, there is a lot of scope of research and development in making safe, reliable, and effective products from complex matrices of natural products. In addition to growing good-quality natural products, there are challenges in harvesting, postharvest treatment, extraction, refining, analysis of active ingredients, and safety before an effective and reliable product is made. Although all of the above activities
play an important role in making a good product, special attention needs to be focused on separation and purification mainly due to the fact that 40% to 80% of the cost of production is assigned to separation and purification unit operations in making functional foods and nutraceuticals. Therefore, a lot of research effort has gone into developing efficient extraction and separation schemes. This chapter will mainly focus on refining and purification of bioactive compounds from natural products using membrane-based separation schemes.
