**7. Conclusions and perspectives**

PEF technology is likely to support many different mass transfer-based processes in the food industry, directed to enhancing process intensification. In particular, the induction of membrane permeabilization of the cells through PEF offers the potential to effectively enhance mass transfer from vegetable cells, opening the doors to significant energy savings in drying, to increased yields in juice expression, to the recovery of valuable cell metabolites, with functional properties, or even to the functionalization of foods. For instance, PEF treatment of the grape pomaces during vinification can significantly increase the polyphenolic content of the wine, thus improving not only the quality parameters (i.e. color, odor, taste…) but also the health beneficial properties (i.e. antioxidant activity). Furthermore, PEF treatments can also be applied to enhance mass transfer into the food matrices, by permeabilization of the cell membranes and enhanced infusion of functional compounds or antimicrobial into foods, minimally altering their organoleptic attributes.

In consideration of the fact that energy requirements for PEF-assisted permeabilization are in the order of about 10 kJ/kg of raw material, it can be concluded that PEF pretreatments can represent an economically viable option to other thermal or chemical permeabilization techniques. However, further research and development activities are still required for the optimization of PEF technology in process intensification, especially in the development of industrial-scale generators, capable to provide the required electric field.
