Drying of pear d’Anjou with and without osmotic dehydration Original Research Article

This work compares the drying behavior exhibited by in natura and by osmotic dehydrated pears. The dryer was a convective vertical tray dryer. The drying was analyzed in terms of effective diffusivity and drying rates. The effective diffusivity varied from 1.59×10−10 to 7.64×10−10 m2/s for in natura pear and from 1.87×10−10 to 8.12×10−10 m2/s for the pears after osmotic dehydration. In the case of moisture content below 1.0 kgw/kgdm, the drying rates only depends on temperature, as internal resistance to moisture transfer prevails.