Secagem solar de Tomate (lycopersicum esculentum mill): processo cinético de secagem e efeito de pré-tratamento em suas características físico-químicas.

Abstract

The tomato (Lycopersicum esculentum Mill) is the fruit that currently has high consumption and commercialization in Brazil and worldwide, being a fruit rich in vitamins, organic acids, soluble solids and water, the latter component is the most abundant and main Responsible for physico-chemical and microbiological changes. Solar drying ensures fruit conservation by reducing its water content and is a viable alternative to the small producer. In order to study the sun-drying process of the tomatoes, they were submitted to four pre-treatments: bleaching (T1), bleaching (T2), bleaching in 2.5% NaCl solution (T3), And bleaching in 2.5% solution of NaCl and Calcium Chloride 0.5% (T4), to evaluate the physical-chemical characteristics of the final product obtained and to identify the mathematical model that best describes the process of solar drying of the tomato. The tomatoes were purchased in the local market of the municipality of Pombal, to which they were selected and benefited for the application of the pre-treatments and the beginning of the solar drying to obtain the kinetic data of drying and application in the mathematical models. After obtaining the kinetic data the fresh and dehydrated tomato was characterized when the water content, titratable total acidity, pH, color, total soluble solids, vitamin C and reducing sugars. The results were submitted to a completely randomized design and analysis of variance. According to the results, it was observed that all the mathematical models accurately represent the solar drying with determination coefficient higher than 99%. Regarding the physical-chemical analyzes for the pre-treatments applied, it was observed that the treatment with bleaching (T2) obtained better results in relation to the other treatments