Microwave Assisted Convective Air Drying of Sugarloaf Pineapples (Ananas Comosus)

HighlightsMicrowave pretreatment before drying reduced drying time significantly.Microwave-assisted drying increased the effective moisture diffusivity coefficient.Microwave pretreatment before convective hot-air drying improved quality parameters.The Middili et al. (2002) model best fitted the microwave-assisted drying of sugarloaf pineapples.Abstract. This study’s objective was to provide the optimum drying conditions to produce quality dried sugarloaf pineapples using microwave pretreatments before the conventional hot air drying. For this, the effect of microwave power (385 to 697 W), microwave time (2 to 4 min), and air temperature (50°C to 70°C) on the drying kinetics and quality of sugarloaf pineapple were evaluated using the Box Behnken response surface methodology. To reach a 17.44±0.09% kg/kg dry matter moisture content, we found the optimum drying conditions for sugarloaf pineapples to be 697 W microwave power for 2.26 min before convective hot air drying at a temperature of 64.75°C. The predicted drying time, ascorbic acid content, and browning index were 13.68 h, 20.89 mg/100 g, and 0.099 Abs unit at this optimum condition, respectively. The pineapple slices’ effective moisture removal rate pretreated with microwave before drying was higher than the control and was between 6.42 × 10-10 m2/s and 11.82 × 10-10 m2/s while ones without a microwave were between 3.54 × 10-10 m2/s and 8.78 × 10-10 m2/s for drying at air temperature between 50°C and 70°C. It was discovered that the Midilli et al. (2002) model was the most appropriate thin layer model for microwave-assisted drying of sugarloaf pineapples. The pineapple slices’ drying rate potential generally increased with microwave power and pretreatments time but not the corresponding increase in the air temperature. Drying time for microwave-assisted drying was in the range of 11 to 20 h, while the ones without microwaves were between 18 and 24 h. Therefore, microwaves should be considered a pretreatment step to the industrial production of sugarloaf pineapple to reduce drying time and produce better quality products. Keywords: Drying, Hot air, Microwave, Moisture diffusivity, Sugarloaf pineapple.