Title:Evaluation of the Browning Kinetics for Bananas and Pears Submitted to Convective Drying
VOLUME: 1 ISSUE: 2
Author(s):Raquel P. F. Guine and Maria Joao Barroca
Affiliation:Quinta da Alagoa. Estrada de Nelas. Ranhados. 3500-606 Viseu. Portugal.
Keywords:Browning, bowning kinetics, banana, colour, colour difference, pear.
Abstract:The aim of this work was to evaluate the kinetics of colour change for bananas and pears dried in hot air at different
temperatures, and also to test different kinetic models to verify which describe best the experimental data. Banana
fruits from Madeira island and Costa Rica were and pears from cultivar D. Joaquina were peeled, cut and dried with hot
air at 0.5 m/s and temperatures ranging from 50 to 70 ºC, until reaching a final moisture content lower than 10% (wet basis).
Along drying colour measurements were done using a tristimulus colorimeter measuring the CIELab coordinates, L*,
a* and b*. The experimental data was then fit to different kinetic models found in literature (first order, second order and
exponential rise functional). The results obtained showed that bananas undergo a more intense color change than pears. It
was further observed that the increase in drying temperature lead in general to an increase in the colour degradation, being
this effect more pronounced in the pears. As to the kinetics of color change, the exponential rise function showed the best
fitting, and the values of the kinetic constant found with this model varied from 5.7023x10-5 to 1.0086 h-1.
