Modeling of solute transfer rate during osmotic dehydration of pretreated redbell pepper

Osmotic dehydration process is a solid-liquid and mass transfer operation which is conducted with the aim of impregnating solute, from osmotic solution, into the tissue so as to reduce water content in red bell pepper. However, solute transfer rate during the process is relatively slow; the pepper was pretreated with pulsed electric field (PEF) process and membrane permeability was increased during the pretreatment process. In this study, a mathematical model was developed from fundamental law of mass diffusion with the aim of predicting solute transfer rate during osmotic dehydration of red bell pepper at different PEF- induced pore areas of the tissue. The model was solved analytically and numerically. Codes were developed in MATLAB environment for solute transfer into the tissue at different induced pore areas. The predicted results were compared with experimental results and gave high correlation coefficient ranging from 0.910 to 0.998 for numerical result and 0.920 to 0.970 for the analytical. These indicate that the predicted results were in good agreement with experimental results obtained from the literature