Experimental values and correlations of some thermal properties of fresh and osmotically dehydrated stone fruits

A. RODRÍGUEZ; MARCELA RODRIGUEZ ; R.H. MASCHERONI

International Journal of Postharvest Technology and Innovation

Inderscience Publishers

Lugar: Genèva; Año: 2014 vol. 4 p. 138 - 150

1744-7550

Stone fruits (as plums, peaches and nectarines) are widely consumed fresh or processed. Osmotic dehydration (OD) is often used as a pretreatment to further conservation procedures for these fruits, including refrigeration and freezing. It is of theoretical and technical value to determine experimental values and to develop general equations to predict the variation of heat capacity and enthalpy with temperature and water content and that of initial freezing point with water content, independent of the fruit and vegetable used. In this work we obtained: - Experimental data of the variation of water content and soluble solids during the OD of nectarines, peaches and plums in solutions of glucose or sorbitol; - Experimental data for enthalpy of fresh and osmotically dehydrated nectarines, plums and peaches as a function of temperature and type of osmotic solute; - Correlations for initial freezing temperature of OD stone fruits as a function of water content and type of dehydrating solute; - Correlations between heat capacity or enthalpy and temperature for some fresh and osmotically dehydrated stone fruits.