Effect of pulsed electric fields pre-treatment on mass transport during the osmotic dehydration of organic kiwifruit

Abstract

[EN] Recently, some authors have applied pulsed electric fields (PEF) as a pre-treatment of osmotic dehydration, showing a faster kinetics of dehydration. Osmotic dehydration of fruit tissue shows complex mass transfer mechanism associated with active and passive transports of the vegetal matrix, usually driven by electrolytes. The aim of this work was to analyze the effect of different PEF values (100, 250, 400 V/cm) as a pre-treatment of the osmotic dehydration (61.5°Brix, up to 120 min) on mass transport mechanism of organic kiwifruit.

A thermodynamic model able to describe the mass transfer and tissue deformation in kiwifruit was developed. It was possible to conclude that pulsed electric field as a pre-treatment, remove a part of the native electrolytes, reducing the activity of protein active pumps, leaving alone the passive protein channels as a main mass transmembrane transport and therefore affecting to the regular functionality of cell homeostasis system.