Effect of infrared radiation on chemical and physical properties on Duku’s peel

Abstract

Infrared radiation has a potential for drying agricultural commodities such as the peel of duku. Drying of duku's peel in a whole duku using infrared radiation could become an effective method to eliminate the water on the peel but not in the flesh and could increase the shelf life of duku. The objective of this study was to investigate the potential of using infrared radiation for drying the peel of duku which would increase the shelf life of duku during storage. Duku's peel drying process was achieved by means of heating duku using a pairs of electric infrared emitters (IRE) facing each other with the emitter distance of 6 cm and 10 cm for a relatively short heating time of 50, 60, 70 and 80 seconds and after that stored at a cool room at the temperature of 15 °C for the length of one month. During storage, the physical and chemical changes of duku were then evaluated. It was found that the weight loss, fruit firmness, and total soluble solid of duku dried by means of exposing to Infra Red Emitter (IRE) were significantly affected by the distance of IRE, the temperature of IRE and the time exposed to IRE. However the titratable acidity only affected significantly by the distance of IRE. There were no significantly changes of browning index on duku during drying by exposing to IRE and while stored up to 25 th day of storage. Drying duku by exposing it to IRE show a slightly better shelf life than the previous work.