Direct and Mixed Solar Drying Effect on Kinetics and Colorimetry of Edamame (Glycine max (L.) Merr.)
Abstract
Edamame is food with valuable nutritional content, mainly due to its high protein and vitamin content. Given today's fast-paced lifestyle, dehydrated foods have become a significant option to obtain the necessary nutritional contributions. This study reports edamame drying in a mixed solar dryer and a direct cabinet-type solar dryer. As a quality parameter, colorimetric data, proteins, and initial and final water activity were obtained. The experimental results show that the moisture content stabilized faster in the mixed solar dryer, with 6 hours; the maximum drying speed achieved for this technology was 0.0109 kg water kg ss min with a moisture content final .6369 g water / g ss. Both the protein content and the total color change were better in the Mixed dryer with a value of 11.29 ΔE. The mathematical model that best adjusted to the experimental results in the direct cabinet-type dryer was the Weibull with R2 of 0.9947. For the mixed dryer, the model that best adjusted was Weibull with an R2 of 0.9988. Solar drying is a feasible technology to conserve edamame, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, helping reduce food waste, and providing essential nutrients to people's daily diet.