An Investigation of Mass Transfer Phenomena during Osmotic Dehydration of Orange Slices

Abstract

The osmotic dehydration causes water removing from food and also a soluble solid uptake into the<br />foodstuffs. However, large penetration of solute into the food becomes a major problem in osmotic<br />dehydration.<br />Pre-coating the food to be dehydrated with an artificial, edible barrier was also explored as a way<br />to efficiently hinder solute penetration. In this study the effect of edible coating (CMC),<br />concentration of sucrose solution (50 and 60%), temperature (35, 45 ºC) of Thomson orange, as a<br />model fruit were studied on the factors affected of mass Transfer phenomena during osmotic<br />dehydration. The results showed that the soluble solid gain(SG) , water loss(WL) and productivity<br />ratio(WL/SG) rise with increase of temperature and solute concentration. Coating has affected<br />significantly on the productivity ratio