Organic acid profile of chestnut (Castanea sativa Mill.) as affected by hot air convective drying

ABSTRACT

The objective of the present work was to evaluate the effect of hot air convective drying on the organic acid profile of chestnut. An extractive method, with internal standard, followed by HPLC-UV was validated, allowing the quantification of malic, ascorbic, citric, and fumaric acids with good precision and accuracy. Fresh chestnuts presented differences between varieties. The thermal process caused equivalent losses of ascorbic acid on both varieties, but higher losses of malic acid in Longal. Furthermore, fumaric acid contents increased on both varieties. Therefore, hot air convective drying affected the organic acid composition of chestnut slices, and this effect was varietal dependent.

KEYWORDS:

• Chestnut fruits
• Castanea sativa Mill
• Drying
• Organic acid composition

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia [SFRH/BD/82285/2011, UID/AGR/00690/2013, UID/QUI/50006/2013]. Teresa Delgado acknowledges the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the financial support through the PhD grant—SFRH/BD/82285/2011 and REQUIMTE through the UID/QUI/50006/2013 project. The authors are also grateful to the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT, Portugal) and FEDER under Programme PT2020 for financial support to CIMO (UID/AGR/00690/2013).