The drying process of Sarcocornia perennis: impact on nutritional and physico-chemical properties

• Autor(a) principal: Barroca, M. J.
• Data de Publicação: 2020
• Outros Autores: Guiné, Raquel P. F., Amado, A. M., Ressurreição, S., da Silva, A. Moreira, Marques, M. P. M., de Carvalho, L. A. E. Batista
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.19/6386
• topic: Halophyte plants; Sarcocornia; drying process; Kinetics; FTIR-ATR

The Sarcocornia genus is an extreme salt-toler- ant plant that can be cultivated in saline habitats almost worldwide. To preserve Sarcocornia perennis, convective drying experiments were conducted and their effects on the physico-chemical properties and phenolic content of the plant were studied using conventional and vibrational spectroscopy techniques. The drying process of Sarcocor- nia perennis at temperatures of 40 C, 50 C, 60 C and 70 C revealed three periods of convective drying process with drying times ranging between 4.5 and 24.9 h, respectively to higher and lower temperatures. The heating- up period can be neglected as compared with the drying process, and the duration of constant rate period, as a percentage of the total drying time, ranged between 34 and 20% respectively at 40 C and 70 C. The Modified Page model was proposed to describe the drying process at the different temperatures. From a nutritional point of view, this halophyte plant may be considered as a good source of fibres, phenolic compounds and natural minerals, such as sodium, potassium, calcium and magnesium. The convec- tive drying, in the temperature range currently used, was found to preserve the colour, nutritional characteristics and phytochemical value of Sarcocornia perennis. These results were confirmed by FTIR-ATR and highlight the potential use of the dried plant in novel food products.