Ultrasound as pre-treatment for drying of pineapple.

Dehydration of fruits is an alternative to reduce post-harvest loss of fruits and also a process to produce dried fruits, which can be directly consumed or become part of foodstuffs like cakes, pastries and many others. The effect of ultrasonic pre-treatment and ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration, before air-drying, on dehydration of pineapple (Ananas comosus) was investigated. This study allowed estimating the water diffusivity in the air-drying process for pineapples submitted to ultrasound. Results showed that the water diffusivity increased after application of ultrasound and that the overall drying time was reduced by 8% (over 1h of air-drying time). During the ultrasonic treatment in distilled water the pineapples lost sugar (23.2% in 30 min), so in this condition the ultrasonic pre-treatment can be an interesting process to produce dried fruits with low sugar content. Results showed that the water loss increased with increasing soluble solids content of the osmotic solution and that the ultrasound-assisted osmotic dehydration incorporated more sugar than conventional osmotic dehydration. The water effective diffusivity of the pineapples during the air-drying process was influenced by the pre-treatment, increasing the water effective diffusivity when ultrasound was applied.