Drying of mangoes applying pulsed UV light as pre-treatment

High intensity pulsed UV Light is a non-thermal treatment used in sanitization of fruits and vegetables. In this work, we have applied high intensity pulsed UV light as a pretreatment for convective air-drying evaluating the benefits of the pretreatment to the drying process and to the nutritional quality of the dried product. Mangoes were subjected to pulses of UV light. The pretreated samples were further dried in a convective oven- drier until 90% of the initial water content has been removed. Drying kinetics, water apparent diffusivity, vitamin B, vitamin C content and total carotenoids content were analyzed. Pulsed UV light showed to be an interesting pretreatment for mangoes given the higher nutritional content of the dried product. (Author)