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ISBN 978-1-61728-913-2
2011 Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Chapter 6
ABSTRACT
Drying and dehydration techniques have constantly been evolving since ancient
time; from sun drying to solar drying, from convective air drying to impingement
drying. The heating medium has changed from sunlight to dielectric and
electromagnetic radiation, from hot air to jet impingement, from steam to
superheated steam etc. Drying essentially is a simultaneous heat and mass transfer
process, wherein heating medium or internal heat generation helps in evaporation of
free water molecules from the product. Mass transfer rate, during the
drying/dehydration process, can be enhanced by different pretreatments, apart from
using enhanced temperature, optimum air flow rate in case of convective drying or
using high intensity electric field as in case of dielectric and other electromagnetic
drying systems however, opting for extreme conditions, product quality may be
compromised. To suit the consumer demand for quality product, current technologies
are aiming at integrating different pre-treatments like blanching, chemical treatment,
physical modification, application of thermal and non-thermal processes, for
inactivation of enzymes, reduction in microbial load and structural modification with
an aim to enhance mass transfer rate. Enhanced mass transfer rate eventually
overcomes the drying cost and deterioration associated with longer drying time.
Innovative drying technologies such as refractance window drying, corona air or
electrohydrodynamic drying, super-critical CO2 drying and bio-film drying are trying
to address some problems associated with drying. Various hybrid drying technologies
that manifest judicious integration of several dehydration techniques such as osmosis,
convective, vacuum, microwave, radiofrequency, infrared and ohmic heating and
freeze drying with non-thermal processing like high pressure, ultrasound, pulse
electric field and irradiation are cost effective, as these methods reduce drying time
considerably at the same time maintaining the product quality.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Drying or dehydrations is one of the ancient methods and important unit operations
for preserving food. Considering its importance, it is imperative to pay attention to the
end product quality and cost associated with it, as more and more health conscious
consumers are demanding for better quality product. Sun drying, a renewable source of
energy has been used since time immemorial, but the product quality and storability is not
satisfactory owing to its longer drying time. Moreover, this process is weather dependent
and possible in places where, abundant sunshine is available. Alternatively, freeze drying
(FD) provides an excellent means of food preservation with maximum retention of
nutrients, flavor and quality; it has its limitations, however. Freeze-dried product often
tastes spongy as the ice crystals formed during freezing damage the tissue structure.
Besides, it is very expensive and only applicable to high end product. On the other hand,
convective air drying (AD), though economical, takes excess time and does not contribute
to uniform product quality. Therefore, researchers all over the world are coming up with
new drying technologies that cater for the product quality in terms of color, flavor, texture
and microbial safe product, at the same time minimize drying time and cost.
The term drying may be loosely referred to as the removal of free moisture through
addition of heat. This phenomenon is dependent on heat and mass transfer rate, which in
turn is dependent on the shape, size, composition, and structure of the product as well as
mode of drying. Simultaneous heat and mass transfers largely depend on moisture
movement in the capillary zone, liquid and molecular diffusion, vapour diffusion through
the pore spaces, hydrodynamic flow; all of them occurring either in parallel or series
throughout or in some phases of the drying process. Considering the fact that all
biological materials have different composition and structure, providing altogether
different cellular barrier to the moisture migration, adds to the complexity (Nieto et al.,
2001) to mass transfer rate during drying or dehydration process. Plant tissues, in
particular, comprised of cells with vacuoles, cytoplasm, tonoplast, plasmalemma,
cellwall, and intercellular spaces. Moisture can migrate out through (i) trans-membrane
transport via tonoplast and plasmalemma, (ii) symplastic transport via cytoplasm, and (iii)
cellwall (Molz & Ikenberry, 1974 and Tyree, 1970 cited by Nieto et al., 2001). During the
first falling rate period of drying, moisture diffusion governs the process. According to
Ficks second law of diffusion, the moisture transfer during the dehydration process
depends on the intercellular space, tortuosity, deformation of the vegetable tissue,
chemical composition, and structure of the food. Looking at the diverse nature of the food
products undergoing drying/dehydration process, it is essential to consider the nature of
inherent barriers and the means to modify it, to gain maximum advantage for the drying/
dehydration process.
2. PRE-TREATMENTS
Enhanced heat and mass transfer rate during drying or dehydration can be achieved
by disintegrating the cellular matrix through various pre-treatments such as physical
modification, chemical treatment, enzymatic treatment, blanching, and non-thermal
treatments like ultrasound, high pressure processing (HPP), irradiation, pulse electric field
(PEF) etc. Some of these pre-treatment are discussed briefly in the following sections.
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Chemical
Citric acid
Ethyl oleate solution
Product
Apple
Paw Scallop meat
Mulberry fruits
Seedless grape
Sour cherry
Grape
Black grape
Seedless grapes
Apricot
Mushroom
Mushroom
Plum
Seedless grapes
Dasheen leaves
Plum
References
Doymaz, 2009
Marquez-Rios et al., 2009
Doymaz, 2004c
Esmaiili et al., 2007
Doymaz, 2007
Dev et al., 2008
Doymaz, 2006
Doymaz & Pala, 2002
Doymaz, 2004b
Walde et al., 2006
Walde et al., 2006
Tarhan, 2007
Caglar et al., 2009
Maharaj & Sankat, 1996
Tarhan, 2007
2.3. Blanching
2.3.1. Conventional Hot Water or Steam Blanching
Fruits, vegetables and other biological materials are considered living even after
harvesting. They undergo various biochemical and physiological changes, unless until the
changes causing substrates are inactivated by different means, such as blanching.
Blanching is a pre-processing step where fruits and vegetables are subjected to high
temperature, generally either in the form of hot water or steam. Lately, microwave (MW),
radiofrequency (RF), infrared (IR) and ohmic heating (OH) are also used to reduce the
blanching time and overcome nutrient losses. Blanching causes inactivation of enzymes
responsible for biochemical changes such as browning, chlorophyll, lycopene, and
carotene degradation, off-flavor development, reduction in microbial load and escape of
entrapped gas in the intracellular spaces. At the same time, it leads to structural and ultrastructural alteration of tonoplast and plasmalemma associated with cellwall, gelatinization
of starch, thermal denaturation of mucilage, and increase in intercellular spaces. The
disintegration of the cellwall, which otherwise prevents moisture transfer, aids to the
diffusion of moisture from centre to the surface of the product, resulting in reduction of
drying time and better quality product (Doymaz, 2008).
Hot water is one of the common methods of blanching fruits and vegetables; the
temperature ranging between 70-100 C. It results in more uniform heating and allows
processing at lower temperature (De Corcuera et al., 2004). In hot water blanching
however, there are more leaching and nutrient losses (Abdel-Kader, 1991) and requires
higher blanching time and water as compared to steam blanching (Ogunmoyela, 1989).
On the other hand, steam blanching though more efficient in restricting leaching and
nutrient losses, may cause over blanching at the surface and under blanching at the centre
of larger food product. Another limitation is the use of food grade steam for blanching
purpose (De Corcuera et al., 2004). Sotomea et al. (2009) has used super-heated steam at
115 C and hot water micro droplets (18 %) to achieve blanching in potato. Color and
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texture degradation were prevented with super-heated steam and water micro droplet
blanching as compared to hot water blanching.
Blanching when done in sugar or brine solution prevents browning, pigment
deterioration, leaching loss, and firming up the cellular structure. Though, the cellular
disruption enhances the drying rate but for osmotically treated samples; due to glucose
uptake and shrinkage, the effective diffusivity decreases (Nieto et al., 2001).
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especially those with high salt content, increases with product temperature in the RF
frequency range. This often leads to significant non-uniform heating. A major challenge
in RF heating research and development is to design RF applicators that provide uniform
field patterns in foods and to overcome possible thermal runaway in moist foods
containing dissolved salts (Tang et al., 2005).
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electrical conductivity (Sastry & Li, 1996). Electrical conductivity increases with
temperature and field strength as a result of reduction in drag movement by the ionized
particles. Solid content and particle distribution reduce the electrical conductivity, as the
larger and solid particles resist ionic movement (Castro et al., 2003). Linear distribution
of electrical conductivity () with respect to temperature and voltage strength has been
proposed (Eq.1) for semi-liquid materials like apricot and peach puree (Icier & Ilicali,
2005).
D n BT C
(1)
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Commodity
Conductivity, S/cm
Commodity
Apple golden delicious
0.067 0.020a
Peach
a
Apple Red delicious
0.075 0.016
Pear
Beef
0.44b
Pineapple
Chicken
0.37b
Pork
Breast
Top loin
0.665 0.048a
Tender
Shoulder
0.549 0.023a
Thigh
Tender loin
0.348 0.040a
Drumstick
0.444 0.038a
Carrot
0.13b
Potato
Wheat starch
Potato starch
13.30.210-4 c
Corn starch
Rice starch
2.30.210-4 c
a
Strawberry
0.186 0.047
Yam
a
Sarang et al., 2008
b
Palaniappan and Sastry, 1991a,b
c
Morales-Sanchez et al., 2009, starches of water suspension of 30:70 (w/w)
Conductivity, S/cm
0.170 0.018a
0.084 0.019a
0.037 0.014a
0.560 0.051a
0.532 0.031a
0.584 0.033a
0.32b
1.140.210-4 c
0.650.210-4 c
0.11b
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Ohmic heating
60V/cm
Salient features
Enhanced electrical conductivity for higher electric strength and
time, higher water and sugar transfer rates at a moderate
temperature of 37 C
References
Allali et al., 2009
Red delicious
apple cylinders
Potato cubes
Strawberry
Sweet potato
30-100V/cm
Yam
Grapes
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321
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2.4.4. Irradiation
Ionizing radiation has been used for pasteurization and sterilization process for fresh
and processed fruits and vegetables as high ionizing radiation dose (above 1 kGy)
destroys the bacterial spore and vegetative cell. Its use as pre-treatment to drying or
dehydration process is gaining acceptance as exposure to gamma irradiation causes micro
structural breakage in the cellwall or cellwall permeabilization, facilitating mass transfer.
Thus, the irradiated food tissues with structural damage assist the movement of mobile
water molecules, acting as capillaries. Research findings on dried potato, beetroot, carrot,
apple slices subjected to gamma-irradiation, doses varying from 2.5 to 12 kGy, resulted in
histological changes and enhanced mass transfer rate with the increase in doses (Wang &
Chao, 2002, 2003a,b; Wang & Du, 2005; Rastogi, 2005; Rastogi, et al., 2006; Mishra et
al., 2006; Nayak et al., 2006a,b, 2007). Some report, however, claims that irradiation in
low doses (1-2 kGy) causes higher cellcell adhesion through increasing of calcium-cross
linking at the middle lamellae regions, in addition to an increment of cross-links of
polymers into the cellwall (Latorre et al., 2010), this may adversely affect the moisture
migration. Thorough research is needed before recommending the doses and duration of
irradiation for drying pre-treatment. Though consumer have some apprehension about the
irradiated food, in long run, irradiation seems to be a better option for disinfection of
food, adhering to the safety norms as well as an energy saving process.
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Table 4. Effect of HPP on structural changes in foods
Commodity
Operating conditions
HP effect
References
Broccoli
210 MPa
Carrot
Phunchaisri &
Apichartsrangkoon,
2005
Cruz-Romero et al.,
2007
Cowpea
seeds
Lychee
Oysters
Potato
Thai
glutinous
Rice
Turkey breast
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Table 5. List of EHD drying of food materials and their advantages over conventional
air/oven drying
Commodity
Apple slices
Baking
(augmented)
Biscuits
Japanese white
radish
Okara
Potato slabs
Rough rice
Spinach
Wheat
Whey protein
Salient features
Needle electrode had better drying rate, color of
dried product did not deviate from the pre-dried
sample, no extraneous material formed in the
dried product
Augmented
High drying rate, more energy effective compared
to fluidized bed and agitated contact drying
Reduction in shrinkage, high water absorption
ratio, reduced solid loss during soaking, better
color compared to oven-dried samples
Higher drying rate, but darker color
Drying achieved at low temperature;
No significant difference in germination rate, and
percent fissured grain at lower temperature
compared to control
Better chlorophyll, ascorbic acid retention, no
browning, and extraneous chemical formed, better
storability
High drying rate for multiple electrodes, Low
power consumption,
No significant color change, no alteration in
protein structure compared to original
References
Hashinaga et al., 1999
Kulacki &
Daubenmier, 1978
Goodenough et al.,
2007
Bajgai & Hashinaga,
2001a
Li et al., 2006
Chen & Barthakur,
1991; 1994
Cao et al., 2004b