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Effects of pretreatments on quality attributes, moisture diffusivity, and activation energy of solar dried ivy gourd
Author(s) -
Elangovan Elavarasan,
Natarajan Sendhil K.
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of food process engineering
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.507
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1745-4530
pISSN - 0145-8876
DOI - 10.1111/jfpe.13653
Subject(s) - ascorbic acid , chemistry , sugar , postharvest , gourd , moisture , food science , reducing sugar , water activity , control sample , thermal diffusivity , water content , horticulture , botany , physics , organic chemistry , geotechnical engineering , quantum mechanics , engineering , biology
Effect of pretreatments and drying method on the ivy gourd and their drying characteristics such as rate of drying, moisture diffusivity and activation energy are studied. The ivy gourd samples are pretreated with four pretreatments such as ascorbic acid, lemon juice, sugar solution, honey dip, and control for 10 min. Pretreated and control (untreated) ivy gourd slices are dried in a single slope solar dryer. The solar dryer temperature is found to be in the range of 35–72°C at air velocity of 1 m/s. The effective moisture diffusivity of the dried ivy gourd samples is found to be best in ascorbic acid (7.90 × 10 −8 m 2 /s) followed by control samples (5.07 × 10 −9 m 2 /s), lemon juice samples (6.92 × 10 −9 m 2 /s), honey dip samples (3.05 × 10 −10 m 2 /s), and sugar solution samples (3.37 × 10 −10 m 2 /s). The activation energy of the dried ivy gourd is found as lowest in ascorbic acid (21.23 kJ/mol) followed by control samples (24.81 kJ/mol), lemon juice samples (26.06 kJ/mol), sugar solution samples (27.05 kJ/mol), and honey dip (27.79 kJ/mol) samples. The sensory analysis for the dried samples is performed in terms of taste, color and it is observed that honey treated sample given promising results followed by sugar solution, ascorbic acid, lemon juice, and control samples. Practical application Drying is a widely practicing technology in the postharvest food processing for their longer preservation. Most of the developing countries are facing huge loss in the vegetable postharvesting due to open drying methods. This is mainly due to the non‐availability of efficient solar drying facilities. This study proposed the most efficient solar drying method suitable for developing countries. Besides, quality of four different pretreatment ivy gourds is dried in a natural and forced convective single slope direct solar dryer and also dried in an open sun drying method. The effects of pretreatments on the moisture loss are analyzed and presented here. Based on the results, it is confirmed that, the pretreatments are the effective method for removing the moisture content of the food substances for longer period of preservation.