New Spectrophotometric System to Segregate Tissues in Mandarin Fruit

TRAFFANO-SCHIFFO, MARIA VICTORIA; CASTRO-GIRALDEZ, MARTA; COLOM, RICARDO J.; FITO, PEDRO J.

FOOD AND BIOPROCESS TECHNOLOGY

SPRINGER

Año: 2018 vol. 11 p. 399 - 406

1935-5130

The knowledge of the electrical properties of the fruit tissues and their relation with the structural and compositional properties opens an endless number of opportunities in the development and design of industrial equipment for quality and process control. Nowadays, one of the main industrial issues is the detection of seeds inside the fruit, which could be possible with an electrical study of each tissue as a first step of the development of non-destructive sensors. In this context, a deep study of the dielectric properties of mandarin fruit tissues, coupled with aw, Xw, pH, maturity index, cryo-SEM, and optical measurements, was performed. Dielectric properties were studied in radiofrequency and microwave ranges. alfa, beta, and γ-dispersions and their relaxation parameters were obtained, described, and related to the chemical parameters. Finally, a tool, based on the relaxation dielectric constant in γ-dispersion able to determine the moisture content of the mandarin fruit tissues, has been developed.