Browsing by Author "Dhake, Kushal"

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    Effect of pretreatment and temperature on drying characteristics and quality of green banana peel
    (MDPI, 2023-11-03) Dhake, Kushal; Kumar Jain, Sanjay; Jagtap, Sandeep; Pathare, Pankaj B.
    In banana cultivation, a considerable amount of the production is wasted every year because of various constraints present in the post-harvest management chain. Converting green banana pulp and peels into flour could help to reduce losses and enable the food sector to keep the product for an entire year or more. In order to use green banana fruit and peel flour in the food industry as a raw ingredient such as in bakery and confectionery items—namely biscuits, cookies, noodles, nutritious powder, etc.—it is essential to standardize the process for the production of the flour. As a result, the purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of pretreatment and temperature on the drying capabilities and quality of dried green banana peel. The green banana peel pieces were pretreated with 0.5 and 1.0% KMS (potassium metabisulfite), and untreated samples were taken as control, and dried at 40°, 50°, and 60 °C in a tray dryer. To reduce the initial moisture content of 90–91.58% (wb) to 6.25–9.73% (wb), a drying time of 510–360 min was required in all treatments. The moisture diffusivity (Deff) increased with temperature, i.e., Deff increased from 5.069–6.659 × 10−8, 6.013–7.653 × 10−8, and 4.969–6.510 × 10−8 m2/s for the control sample, 0.5% KMS, and 1.0% KMS, respectively. The Page model was determined to be the best suited for the drying data with the greatest R2 and the least χ2 and RSME values in comparison with the other two models. When 0.5% KMS-pretreated materials were dried at 60 °C, the water activity and drying time were minimal. Hue angle, chroma, and rehydration ratio were satisfactory and within the acceptable limits for 0.5% KMS-pretreated dried banana peel at 60 °C.
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    Optimization of drying parameters for pretreated green banana slices using response surface methodology
    (Wiley, 2025-02-22) Dhake, Kushal; Jain, Sanjay K.; Jagtap, Sandeep; Pathare, Pankaj B.; Pandiselvam, Ravi
    In this study, the influence of drying temperature and pretreatment on the drying kinetics and quality metrics of green banana slices was investigated. The present investigation included the drying of 4 ± 1 mm green banana slices with potassium metabisulfite (KMS) at levels of 0 (control), 0.5%, 1%, and 1.5% in a tray dryer. A numerical optimization method was utilized to optimize the drying rate, color, water activity, rehydration ratio, and attractiveness of the banana slices, using a variety of input factors such as drying temperature and pretreatment. The results revealed that the untreated samples and those treated with 1.0% and 1.5% KMS required a longer drying time than the samples treated with 0.5% KMS. The process parameters were optimized using response surface methodology, adopting an I‐optimal design for this investigation. The best solution yielded a drying air temperature of 60.62°C and a pretreatment level of 0.786% KMS, resulting in a drying time of 346.28 min, a color (L∗) value of 76.23, a water activity (aw) of 0.299, and a rehydration ratio of 2.81. Similar outcomes were obtained when the optimized conditions were tested and compared with experimental data using an experimental validation process.