Investigation of Changes in Physical Properties and Microstructure and Mathematical Modeling of Shrinkage of Onion during Hot Air Drying

مجله پژوهشهای علوم و صنایع غذایی ایران

Article 11, Volume 7, Issue 1 - Serial Number 15, April 2011   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/ifstrj.v7i1.9369

Authors

Sedigheh Abbasi^{* 1}; Seyed Mahmoud Mousavi²; Mohebbat Mohebbi³

¹Esfarayen Higher Education Complex

²-

³Department of Food Science and Technology, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

Abstract

The effect of air drying temperature on shrinkage, rehydration ratio and microstructure of dried onion slices (3±0.2 mm thickness and 30 mm diameter) was studied. The different drying conditions led to distinctive structural changes in the samples, affecting the shrinkage and rehydration ratio. Experiments showed that the intensity of structural changes depends on temperature and drying times. A higher temperature and time caused greater damage to the microstructure of onion slices, resulting in the formation of a highly porous structure. The results also indicated that increasing time and temperature increased the shrinkage and rehydration ratio of samples. In mathematical modeling of shrinkage, the model proposed in this study, which had R2 values higher than 0.978 and SSE values pretty low, predicted accurately the experimental data.

Keywords: Shrinkage, Rehydration, Microstructure, Onion, Drying, Modeling