<b>Osmotic dehydration of jackfruit (<em>Artocarpus integrifolia</em> L.): application of mathematical models</b> - DOI: 10.4025/actascitechnol.v31i2.1026

Abstract

Osmotic dehydration has been suggested as an important unitary operation in the processing of perishable fruit into new products with greater shelf live and aggregate value. The application of reliable mathematical models makes it possible to predict the behavior of several phenomena that occur in the process, enabling the reduction of operational cost as well. The objective of this paper was to study the application of mathematical models to water loss, solid gain, pH and titratable acidity (TA) variables during osmotic dehydration of jackfruit in sucrose solution at 64°brix and at different concentrations of sucrose and different solution temperatures (40, 50, 60 and 70°C), for 2,880 minutes. The exponential decay model 2 was better adjusted to water loss experimental data, with the determination coefficient ranging from 76.73% to 97.16%, whereas for the variables total soluble solids (TSS) and TA, the logistic model was better adjusted to the experimental data, obtaining a variation from 80.5 to 98.2% and from 89.5 to 99.4%. For pH, the exponential decay model 1 obtained a good adjustment to the experimental data, with determination coefficients ranging from 80.5 to 98.2%.