This study aimed to compare the effect of ohmic and conventional heat treatments on red guava pulp, evaluating the effects on pulp color, degradation kinetics of ascorbic acid and carotenoids, together with the thermal efficiency of both treatments. Samples were heated by conventional heating (water bath) and ohmic heating (platinum electrodes) using alternating voltage of 21.2 V/m and average frequency of 60 Hz at temperatures of 60, 70 and 80 °C for 110 min. In general, the ascorbic acid degradation followed a first order kinetics, for both heat treatments, the pulp color showed no significant variation (p < 0.05) according to the type and time of heating applied, whereas the carotenoid content was favored by ohmic heating, at the two lowest temperatures tested. As for the heat transfer process, the ohmic treatment showed an average thermal efficiency of 40.93%, while the conventional heating, 2.62%, proving to be a promising emerging technology for processing viscous foods with suspended particles like fruit pulps.
Keywords: Degradation kinetics; Thermal treatment; Tropical fruit.
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