Estudo da secagem de manga (Mangifera indica L.) variedade Tommy Atkins desidratadas osmoticamente.

Abstract

Osmotic dehydration represents a technological alternative to reduce post-harvest losses of fruits. This work aimed to obtain raisins of mango through the osmotic dehydration of mango (Mangifera indica L.) variety Tommy Atkins with subsequent convective drying at 50 °C. Osmotic dehydration was performed in sucrose syrups with 30, 40 and 50 °Brix. In the process, the water loss percentage, the percentage of weight loss and gain of the solid product were monitored. During convective drying the kinetics of drying was monitored and it was evaluated the fit of experimental data to the mathematical models of Page, Lewis, and Verna Henderson and Pabis. It was observed that the higher the concentration of sucrose in the syrup the osmotic dehydration becomes more efficient and hence the convective drying later. It was also found that the model proposed by Page gave the best fitted to the experimental data of convective drying of Tommy Atkins mango pre-osmotically dehydrated in sucrose syrups with 30, 40 and 50 °Brix.