Secagem de fatias e pedaços cúbicos de goiaba (Pisidium guajava L).

Abstract

Initially, the objective of this work was to study the drying of whole guava slices cut in the fruit polar direction. The results pointed out that this process introduced adverse aspects for commercialization, such as significant alteration in color, darkness, and slices texture. Looking for a better product quality, studies on combined process fixed bed/spouted bed and fixed bed/fluidized bed for guava cubic pieces drying were performed in a second step. The guava slices were obtained by cutting the fruit pith in approximately 1cm cubic form. A fluid-dynamic study in spouted bed and fluidized bed showed the feasibility of this technique, although the physical properties of guava cubic pieces after pre-drying in fixed bed affected the fluid-dynamics behavior causing structural alteration. The minimum spouting velocity, the maximum spoutable height and the minimum fluidization velocity as well, were determined and the obtained results showed good agreement with literature correlations. In order to characterize the fruit cubic pieces, the physical properties, thermal properties and hygroscopic equilibrium were determined as a function of the moisture content. The results of density and diameter pointed out that the particles were classified as type D according Geldart. In such situation, one may expect a stable spouting with incipient fluidization. In relation to the study of the shrinking and deformation it was observed a linear volume contraction with the moisture reduction at all levels of product moisture content during drying, together with a rapid rounding of the cube vertices. Spite the linear behavior, two distinct regions, limited by 1,5 (db) moisture content, had been observed during the spouted bed drying, characterized by the change in the curve slope. The thermal properties, thermal conductivity, thermal diffusivity and specific heat, were measured as a function of moisture content. All three presented the same trend: it was observed a region of increasing value of the property with the moisture content with a maximum in the region of maximum density. The Henderson model was adjusted to the hygroscopic equilibrium isotherms; the results showed a good fitting and little effect of temperature was observed within the studied temperature range. A diffusional model for spheres was proposed to describe the drying kinetics. The Fick's solution, truncated in four terms of the series and including the shrinking effect, was used in the modeling. The fixed bed/spouted bed experimental data showed a good fitting whereas this model does not satisfactorily predict the drying behavior in the fixed bed/fluidized bed system. The failure in this case is probably due to the shrinking factor was not considered in the model for fixed/fluidized bed. The effective diffusion coefficient for high levels of moisture presented the same order of magnitude for both processes, independent of the bed height. The internal diffusional control hypothesis for the mass transfer was then confirmed by the high mass Biot number, calculated for both processes. The driers performance was evaluated by means of analysis of the vitamin C loss and process energetic efficiency. It was verified that the acid ascorbic degradation is more significant in the fluidized bed, probably due to the instable behavior of this configuration. With regard to the energy efficiency higher values were found for the highest moisture content levels. In general, it is concluded that the combined system fixed/spouted or fixed/fluidized bed drying of guava pieces is an expecting suitable process to obtain a new product by a simple technology, getting products with adequate characteristics to the commercialization.