Far infrared assisted refractance window drying: Influence on drying characteristics and quality of banana leather

Abstract

The market demand for fruit-based healthy snacks in dried form is increasing rapidly. Novel and efficient drying techniques are being explored to meet market demand of fruit-based snacks with better nutritive value and sensorial attributes. In this study, suitability of far infrared assisted refractance window (FIR + RW) drying to obtain banana leather was ascertained and drying behavior, bioactives, flavor, microstructure, and sensory attributes were compared with RW and hot air (HA) drying. FIR + RW and RW reduced the drying time by 60–75% and energy consumption by 38–45% as compared to HA. RW drying preserved color and retained higher phenolics (19%), ascorbic acid (22%) and antioxidant capacity (16–47%) compared to HA. Among the studied methods, HA resulted in higher browning index and hydroxymethylfurfural content. FIR + RW and RW dried banana samples had maximum flavor compounds, better overall consumer acceptance and improved cellular structure with widened pores. The study indicated that RW and FIR + RW have good potential to be considered as alternative drying techniques to HA for producing high-quality fruit leather.

Keywords:

• Hybrid drying
• microstructure
• principal component analysis
• sensory attributes
• solid phase microextraction
• Weibull distribution model

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank the Director, CSIR-CFTRI for providing the infrastructure and other facilities for carrying out this work. The author (Deependra Rajoriya) would like to thank UGC-RGNF for the award of Senior Research Fellowship.

Author’s contribution

Deependra Rajoriya: development of proposed drying system, methodology, data acquisition, data analysis and interpretation, writing-original draft preparation, Mysore Lokesh Bhavya: data curation, data analysis and interpretation of GC-MS, writing-original draft preparation, Hunglur Umesh Hebbar: conceptualization, supervision, writing-reviewing and editing.

Data availability statements

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

This study received financial support from Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India.