Comparative study of intermediate-wave and catalytic infrared drying on the kinetics and physicochemical properties of pineapple rings

Abstract

This comprehensive study examined the effects of two infrared drying modes: intermediate-wave infrared drying (IWD) and catalytic infrared drying (CID), on drying kinetics and various quality parameters of pineapple rings at 60–80 °C. Hot-air drying (HAD) was the control drying operation. CID showed the highest drying rates and coefficients of moisture diffusivity (3.05 × 10⁻⁸ m²/s to 5.12 × 10⁻⁸ m²/s), resulting in drying times (1.88–3.15 h) that were about half that of HAD (3.57–7.25 h) and 10–34% less than that of IWD (2.08–4.75 h). Compared to IWD, CID exhibited minor color changes and a stronger flavor profile and enzyme inactivation potential. However, it resulted in a hardened product surface, thus reducing the rehydration ability. Overall, CID exhibited higher bioactive retention rates, especially at 60 °C (56–87%), followed by IWD at 70 °C (50–80%) and 80 °C (35–90%). Based on the results of this study, CID produces superior quality dried pineapples in a significantly shorter drying time, which is of potential industrial interest.

Keywords:

• Pineapple
• catalytic infrared drying
• intermediate-wave infrared drying
• drying kinetics
• quality

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful for the support provided by Jinan City Science & Technology Innovation Project of Ten Agricultural Characteristic Industries.

Disclosure of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Authors’ contributions

Essodézam Sylvain Tiliwa: Investigation; methodology; writing-original draft. Baoguo Xu: Funding acquisition; resources; supervision; writing-review & editing. Chang Han: Investigation. Cunshan Zhou: Investigation; writing-review & editing. Haile Ma: Investigation; writing-review & editing.

Data availability

Data will be made available on reasonable request.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31801561), China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2019T120401), and 2020 Provincial Policy Guidance Program (Subei Science and Technology Project, SZ-HZ202002).