Influence of Blanching Pretreatment on the Drying Characteristics of Cherry Tomato and Mathematical Modeling

Abstract

Abstract The hot air drying with blanching pretreatment may provide a practical method for the production of dried cherry tomatoes. The influences of drying temperature (50°C, 60°C, 70°C and 80°C) and blanching on the drying kinetics of cherry tomatoes were studied. Nine mathematical models were evaluated and the determination of coefficient (R2), chi-square (χ2) and root mean square errors (RMSE) were compared. The Logarithmic model gave best results with R2 of 0.9992 and 0.9995 for fresh and blanched cherry tomatoes, respectively. The values of effective moisture diffusivity coefficient Deff varied in the range of 1.7281 × 10−9 to 4.6306 × 10−9 m2 s−1 for the fresh cherry tomatoes, while 2.1034 × 10−9 to 6.6487 × 10−9 m2 s−1 for the blanched samples. The values of activation energy were 31.99 and 36.21 kJ mol−1 for the raw and blanched cherry tomatoes, respectively. Furthermore, the effect of temperature and blanching on color change of cherry tomatoes was measured.