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# Institution of Chemical Engineers
Trans IChemE, Vol 78, Part C, December 2000
A
detailed comparative analysis was carried out on freeze-drying coupled with an
evaporative freezing and a conventional freezing step, using on-line monitoring of
several fruit and vegetable weights vs. time. The experimental work was based on the
use of two weighing cells: a traditional one and a prototype capacitive balance. The work
showed that process rates differed because of product texture, water and sugar content, cooling
temperature and freezing velocity. Different water release mechanisms were identi ed.
187
188 GHIO et al.
provision of the heat of sublimation. A value of one seventh couples could be inserted into the product. Further details of
of the total water is reported by Rey6, although even higher the experimental set up are given elsewhere8,10.
values can result, depending on the nature of the material. It
has to be kept in mind, however, that processing costs are
Procedure
only a part of total production costs in the food industry,
particularly for fruits and vegetables. This is because rinsing Experiments were carried out on different types of fruits
and sometimes bleaching the raw material, cutting it into and vegetables: apricots, plums, prickly pears, bananas,
pieces (slices, chips, dices, etc.), loading and discharging the cherry tomatoes, mushrooms (cepes) and apples. The rst
dryer, selecting the nal product, packaging and storing are ve types were simply divided into two pieces and not
required regardless of the process. The quality of the nal peeled; small mushrooms were frozen in their original shape
product is generally good when compared to hot-air dried (a quite typical market requirement), whereas apples were
products, the main advantage being appearance, avour cut into small sticks (10 10 70 mm) to study the freezing
retention and rapid re-hydration. The fresh colour of the rate and compare the process rate using evaporative freeze
product is maintained and the shape is only slightly chan- drying and the conventional technique. Average water and
ged. So, in many cases the special product advantages sugar contents of the different products, taken from the
outweigh the extra production costs incurred. literature, are given in Table 1.
Very few data have been published on evaporative freez- Each evaporative-freezing run was carried out according
ing, and little information is available on this step and its to the following procedure: rst the material was prepared
in uence on the whole process, especially with regard and weighed, then placed onto the aluminium tray in the
to fruit and vegetables processing7. The aim of this work drying chamber and tiny thermocouples were inserted into
is to evaluate the behaviour of different kinds of fruits and the product, in different fruit pieces. After closing the
vegetables, by correlating the duration of the freezing step vacuum chamber, the condenser and the vacuum pump
and the amount of water removed with the characteristics of were switched on to start the evaporative freezing process.
the raw material. Some fundamental aspects, such as the Several thermocouple outputs were recorded during each
drying rate during the evaporative freezing step and the run. The run was stopped at the end of the drying process
freezing rate, have also been investigated. when steady weight output was observed.
Traditional freezing by conduction was carried out in a
few runs using the equipment cooling plate, in order to
EXPERIMENTAL SET-UP investigate the in uence of the freezing step on process
length and product characteristics. Duplicate runs were
Apparatus
carried out to check reproducibility.
The experimental apparatus was derived from a commer-
cial Lyovac GT2 freeze-drier by Leybold, modi ed to
improve its performances and with instrumentation to RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
permit on-line monitoring of weight loss and product Figure 1 shows the typical variation of the temperature of
temperature during the process. The cylindrical drying the product during evaporative-freezing runs: in this case
chamber contains a heating=cooling plate (not used in the apple chips (10 10 mm cross section) were processed. The
evaporative freezing experiments), and a round tray of position of the two thermocouples inserted into the apple
suitable size. stick is also shown. The sharp initial decrease of the product
Two weighing devices were used: the rst one was derived temperature corresponds to the freezing due to water
from an analytical balance after separating the weighing cell evaporation. As shown in the gure, the temperature
(placed inside the lyophilization chamber) from its electro- measured by two micro-thermocouples, placed at different
nic components (located outside); the relative tests are depths, appears to decrease during the freezing step with the
characterized by a mass range in the order of a few hundred same rate in the outer material portion and in the core. Up to
of grams of material. Due to the sensitivity needs and now it has not been made clear whether the cooling in the
response stability required by process kinetics determina- internal position occurs because of local evaporation or is
tion, a prototype capacitive balance was then conceived, due to thermal conduction in the solid state. In any case the
constructed and tested to meet the drastic speci cations heat transfer mechanism is very fast as cooling rates
typical of freeze drying. The experiments carried out using exceeding several C=min were recorded. While the thermo-
this instrument were more accurate, even though the mass of couple in the internal position still shows some cooling, the
the material dried was of one order of magnitude smaller. temperature in the upper position begins to increase because
Details and characteristics of this innovative instrumentation of heat transfer from the outside and due to the fact that the
are provided elsewhere8,9. drying process begins to slow down. After the end of the
The lyophilization chamber was insulated and separated
by a butter y valve from the condensation chamber, Table 1. Average water and sugar contents of fruit and vegetables.
upstream of a vacuum pump. The maximum condensation
capacity was as high as 3 kg of ice in 24 h; the mini- Water, % Sugar, %
mum operating temperature of the condenser as low as Apple (Pyrus malus) 85.6 11.0
¡80 C; while the absolute pressure in the freeze-drier was Apricot (Prunus armeniaca) 86.3 6.8
maintained at values lower than 6 Pa. A Pirani sensor was Banana (Musa sapientium) 76.8 15.5
installed to measure the pressure in the drying chamber. The Plum (Prunus domestica) 87.5 10.5
Cepe (Boletus edulis) 92.0 –
temperature of the plate was monitored by means of a Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum) 94.2 2.8
thermal resistance, while several bare joint micro-thermo-
Freezing step
Total Total
Fruits process time weight loss Tmin Time Weight loss
and vegetables h % C h %
Apple 15 85 ¡21 0.5 33
Apricot 53 85 ¡16 1.17 23.8
Prickly pear 20.75 89 ¡25 0.92 33.2
Plum 31 72 ¡17 1.3 27.1
Cepes 8.55 91 ¡25 0.38 32.8
Tomato 32.67 94 ¡26 0.43 22.7
Figure 3. Effect of the pressure on the freezing step: apricot halves.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Chimica, Politecnico di Torino, Corso Duca degli Abruzzi 24, 10129
Torino, Italy. E-mail: barresi@athena.polito.it
Financial support by the Italian National Research Council (CNR) is
gratefully acknowledged. The manuscript was received 11 August 2000 and accepted for publica-
tion after revision 21 December 2000.
ADDRESS
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to
Dr A. Barresi, Dipartimento di Scienza dei Materiali ed Ingegneria