Application of Peleg Model on Mass Transfer Kinetics During Osmotic Dehydratation of Pear Cubes in Sucrose Solution

The applicability of Peleg model was investigated for predicting mass transfer kinetics during the osmotic dehydration (OD) process of pears, at different concentrations (40, 60 and 70%, w/w) and temperatures (20, 35 and 50 degrees C) of sucrose solution. Increase in sucrose solution concentration resulted in higher water loss (WL) and solid gain (SG) values through the osmotic treatment period. After 360 min of osmotic treatment of pears, WL ranged from 23.71 to 31.68% at 20 degrees C, from 24.80 to 40.38% at 35 degrees C and from 33.30 to 52.07% at 50 degrees C of initial weight of pears. The increase of dry mass of the samples, SG, after 360 min of osmotic treatment ranged from 3.02 to 6.68% at 20 degrees C, from 4.15 to 7.71% at 35 degrees C and from 5.00 to 8.92% at 50 degrees C. Pelegs rate constants, k(1)(WL) and k(1)(SG), decreased with increasing temperature, as well as decreased with increasing concentration of osmotic solution at constant temperature. Both capacity constants k(2)(WL) and k(2)(SG) also exhibited the inverse relationship between capacity constant and temperature, as well as concentration of the osmotic solution. Pelegs rate constants for WL and SG at all temperatures followed an Arrhenius type relationship. The predicted equilibrium values were very close to experimental ones, which was confirmed with high coefficients of determination and by the residual analysis