Dehydration kinetics of carrots (Daucus carota L.) in osmotic and air convective drying processes

Resumo

This paper presents a kinetic study of osmotic dehydration and air drying with and without osmotic pre-treatment of carrot. Carrot cylinders of different diameters (4.5, 7 and 9 mm) were employed and, osmotic solutions of sodium chloride of different concentrations (17, 22 and 26% w/w) at various process temperatures (25, 35 and 45°C) and contact times (up to 180 min). The water loss (kg kg�1) and the solid gain (kg kg�1) in the samples increase with temperature and solution concentration increase. These parameters also depend on size (specific area) of the samples. The drying rate (kg water kg�1 dry solid h�1) increases with temperature and decreases with the sample diameter. Experimental drying kinetics were fitted satisfactorily to a first order (simple model) kinetics (where the parameter ks ranges from 0.1748 up to 0.6691 h�1) and to the Page model [where the parameters kp (h�n) and n (�) range from 0.1592 and 1.0683 up to 0.6451 and 1.300, respectively] in order to determine the kinetic constants during drying. Osmotic dehydration combined with the air drying has proven to be an interesting method to reduce water in the samples without extreme thermal processes, nevertheless, the drying rate of the samples previously treated during 1 hour with osmotic dehydration decreased about 13%.