Shrinkage-deformation behavior during the immersion of honeydew melon cuts in sucrose solutions and its effect on mass diffusivities.

Autor: Ramos-Morales, Martha, Aguirre-García, Mariana, Estévez-Sánchez, Karen Hariantty, Ruiz-Espinosa, Héctor, Ochoa-Velasco, Carlos Enrique, Ruiz-López, Irving Israel
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Zdroj: Journal of Food Measurement & Characterization; Feb2024, Vol. 18 Issue 2, p1279-1292, 14p
Abstrakt: As occurs with other dehydration technologies such as air-drying, foods may not only reduce their dimensions when processed by osmotic dehydration (OD), but they may also experience an appreciable shape change or deformation, a phenomenon affecting the estimation of mass transfer properties, yet practically neglected in OD literature. Honeydew melon is a seasonal fruit whose storage and transportation limit its availability and consumption. OD has been highlighted as a feasible preservation method for melon; however, no study has investigated mass transfer during OD of honeydew melon and other cultivars considering their dimensional changes. This study investigated the shrinkage-deformation behavior occurring during the immersion of honeydew melon cuts in sucrose solutions (20–60°Bx, 40–60 °C) and its effect on the estimation of mass diffusivities. Water loss and solute gain kinetics were obtained and further analyzed with a mass transfer model based on the oblate spheroidal coordinate system, allowing to simulate the flattening of honeydew melon pieces observed at the highest temperature or sucrose concentration levels. Water diffusivity values estimated by considering the food shrinkage and deformation ranged from 1.79 × 10–10 to 8.55 × 10–10 m2/s, while those for solids were between 1.02 × 10–10 and 19.8 × 10–10 m2/s. A significant overestimation of 17 to 31% in mass diffusivities was observed under selected experimental conditions when model included the size reduction of honeydew melon cuts without altering their original proportions (isotropic shrinkage) in comparison with the model considering anisotropic shrinkage, while it increased up to 51% when shrinkage and deformation phenomena were left out from the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index
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