The Impact Of The Osmotic Dehydration Process And Its Parameters On The Mass Transfer And Quality Of Dried Apples

The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of different assisting conditions (i.e., ultrasounds, vacuum, microwaves) during osmotic dehydration (OD) on the mass transfer kinetics and quality of dehydrated apple slices. The results of the study showed that the applied process conditions had a significant influence on the mass transfer with highest water loss obtained for ultrasound-assisted OD and highest solid gain for standard OD. Also, considerably higher total phenolic compounds content and antioxidant capacity measured by ABTS and FRAP methods were observed for all applied variants after osmotic dehydration process. It was concluded that joint use of ultrasounds and vacuum (OD-U-V) had the highest impact on quality improvement of dehydrated apple slices.