Ultrasound assisted low temperature drying of food materials

[EN] An ultrasonic design based on the indirect transmission of ultrasonic energy from the ultrasound emitter through to the material to be dried was investigated to assist in low temperature drying of food materials. The application of the improved design tested in this work was found to enhance the low temperature drying by shortening the overall drying time of up to 45% (i.e., lower energy consumption and may enable better retention of product quality). This offers a promising approach towards a better applicability of ultrasound in industrial operation, since no direct contact between the sample and the ultrasonic emitter is needed.Sabarez, HT.; Keuhbauch, S.; Knoerzer, K. (2018). Ultrasound assisted low temperature drying of food materials. En IDS 2018. 21st International Drying Symposium Proceedings. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 1245-1250. https://doi.org/10.4995/IDS2018.2018.7329OCS1245125

Harnessing the potential of ligninolytic enzymes for lignocellulosic biomass pretreatment

Abundant lignocellulosic biomass from various industries provides a great potential feedstock for the production of value-added products such as biofuel, animal feed, and paper pulping. However, low yield of sugar obtained from lignocellulosic hydrolysate is usually due to the presence of lignin that acts as a protective barrier for cellulose and thus restricts the accessibility of the enzyme to work on the cellulosic component. This review focuses on the significance of biological pretreatment specifically using ligninolytic enzymes as an alternative method apart from the conventional physical and chemical pretreatment. Different modes of biological pretreatment are discussed in this paper which is based on (i) fungal pretreatment where fungi mycelia colonise and directly attack the substrate by releasing ligninolytic enzymes and (ii) enzymatic pretreatment using ligninolytic enzymes to counter the drawbacks of fungal pretreatment. This review also discusses the important factors of biological pretreatment using ligninolytic enzymes such as nature of the lignocellulosic biomass, pH, temperature, presence of mediator, oxygen, and surfactant during the biodelignification process

Drying and rehydration behaviors of green bell peppers

In this study, the drying behaviors of green bell peppers were examined in convection dryer. The study was carried out for 3 drying temperatures (55, 65, and 75 degrees C) and for pre-treated samples with ethyl oleate solution against control samples. The pre-treated samples dried faster than the control ones. Drying time decreased with an increase of drying temperature. Rehydration ratio of the pre-treated samples was higher than control samples. Moisture transfer from green bell peppers was described by applying the Fick's diffusion model and the effective moisture diffusivity (D(eff)) was calculated. The D(eff) values for pre-treated and control samples varied between 0.705 and 2.618x10(-9) m(2)/sec. Activation energy values for moisture diffusion ranged from 41.67 and 52.99 kJ/mol. Drying data was fitted to 4 thin-layer drying models, namely, Lewis, Henderson and Pabis, logarithmic, and Page. The best model, which best represented the green bell peppers drying, was logarithmic

Sun drying of seedless and seeded grapes

In this study, sun drying behaviour of seedless and seeded grapes was investigated. The drying study showed that the times taken for drying of seedless and seeded grapes of berry size of 1.72 cm and 2.20 cm thicknesses from the initial moisture contents of 78.2% and 79.5% (w.b.) to final moisture content of around 22% (w.b.) were 176 and 228 h in open sun drying, respectively. The drying data were fitted to 12 thin-layer drying models. The performance of these models were compared using the determination of coefficient (R(2)), mean relative percent error (P), reduced chi-square (χ(2)) and root mean square error (RMSE) between the observed and predicted moisture ratios. The results showed that Midilli et al. model was found to satisfactorily describe the sun drying curves of seedless and seeded grapes. The effective moisture diffusivity values were estimated from Fick’s diffusion model by 1.02 × 10(−11) and 1.66 × 10(−11) m(2)/s for seeded and seedless grapes