Zero-Waste Watermelon Production through Nontraditional Rind Flour: Multiobjective Optimization of the Fabrication Process

CAPOSSIO, JUAN PABLO; FABANI, MARÍA PAULA; ROMÁN, MARÍA CELIA; ZHANG, XIN

Process Design and Sustainable Development

MDPI

Lugar: Basilea; Año: 2024; p. 59 - 78

Watermelon is a fruit produced around the world. Unfortunately, about half of it—therind—is usually discarded as waste. To transform such waste into a useful product like flour,a thermal treatment is needed. The drying temperature for the rind that produces flour with the bestcharacteristics is most important. A multiobjective optimization (MOO) procedure was applied todefine the optimum drying temperature for the rind flour fabrication to be used in bakery products.A neural network model of the fabrication process was developed with the drying temperature asinput and five process indicators as outputs. The group of process indicators comprised acidity,pH, water-holding capacity (WHC), oil-holding capacity (OHC), and batch time. Those indicatorsrepresent conflicting objectives that are to be balanced by the MOO procedure using the weighteddistance method. The MOO process showed that the temperature interval from 67.3 ◦C to 73.1 ◦Cholds the compromise solutions for the conflicting indicators based on the stakeholder’s preferences.Optimum indicator were 0.12–0.19 g malic acid/100 g dwb (acidity), 5.7–5.8 (pH), 8.93–9.08 g H2 O/gdwb (WHC), 1.46–1.56 g oil/g dwb (OHC), and 128–139 min (drying time)