The
kiwifruit is an edible and perishable fruit with a cellular structure and composition that facilitate
osmotic dehydration as means for improving its shelf life without significant modification in structural and sensorial properties. This dehydration process is influenced by thermal pre-treatments, which are applied to reduce the enzymatic activity, the trapped air and to modify the cellular permeability. This work evaluated the effect of two different blanching methods, i.e. immersion in hot water and microwaves, over kiwifruit during the osmotic dehydration process and the storage. It was found that samples blanched with microwaves and immersed in a 60 Brix degrees (ºBx) osmotic solution, had the
highest constant
kinetics rates, 0.224 h-1 for water and 0.267 h-1 for solute. Also, the blanched samples via microwave had the highest apparent diffusion coefficients (Dap), 1.26x10-9 m2 s-1 for water and 2.67x10-9 m2 s-1 for
solute at 50 oBx, while at 60 oBx were 1.56X10-9 m2 s-1 and 2.57X10-9 m2 s-1, respectively. However, the more stable storage conditions were achieved with 50 ºBx osmotic
solution with Dap of 4.63x10-13 m2 s-1 for water and 1.67 x 10-13 m2 s-1 for solute.
Electronic Journal of Food and Plants Chemistry 2 (1) 2007 9-13
More abstracts about the Pre-treatment effect and diffusion kinetics on osmotically dehydrated kiwifruit