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Three technologies were studied as pretreatments to improve mass transfer during osmotic dehydration of pineapple. Effects of vacuum impregnation, high power ultrasound, and microwave heating on water loss, solids gain, and rehydration capacity of the pineapple samples were quantified. Each pretreatment technology was evaluated at three operating conditions. Additionally, energy consumption was quantified as an indicator of the impact of each pretreatment on the final product cost. Microwave processing conditions of 1000 W during 1 min (MD1 procedure ) and 500 W during 2 min (MD2 procedure), showed promising effects to be used as osmotic dehydration pretreatments, due to their positive influence on both solid and water transfer rates and due to low energy consumption in terms of kJ / g of removed water. On the other hand, under the experimental conditions of this work, ultrasound treatments were identified as not environmentally friendly from the energy use standpoint, because their energy consumption was found to be from 3 to 6 times larger than that observed for the MD1 procedure. Lastly, it was found that vacuum impregnation experiments increased solids transport, but decreased water loss.

Andrea Leiva

Grupo de Procesos Agroindustriales, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de La Sabana, Bogotá, Colombia.

Mauricio Pardo

Grupo de Procesos Agroindustriales, Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad de La Sabana, Bogotá, Colombia.
1.
Leiva A, Pardo M. Combination of technologies for the dehydration of pineapple. inycomp [Internet]. 2009 Jan. 9 [cited 2024 Nov. 25];11(1):57-65. Available from: https://revistaingenieria.univalle.edu.co/index.php/ingenieria_y_competitividad/article/view/2470