This study investigated the effects of variations in oil contents and fatty-acid composition, density, viscosity, acid values, saponification values, specific oxidative stability, and antioxidant concentration of Acrocomia totai kernel oil during fruit maturation. Fatty acids were quantified using 1 H nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, gas chromatograph-flame-ionization detector (GC-FID), and Fourier transform Raman (FT-Raman) spectroscopy analyses. The results showed that all physicochemical characteristics and oil composition changed during the ripening stage. The CG-FID analysis showed a reduction in the unsaturated fatty-acid content (from 78.8% to 22.1%), with a proportional increase in the saturated fatty-acid contents (from 21.6% to 77.9%). The difference in the fatty-acid composition was confirmed by analysis of the 1 H NMR and FT-Raman spectra. The degree of unsaturation was calculated to determine the oxidative stability of oil. These results suggest that the fruit's maturation contributes to the specific oxidative stability. The antioxidant concentration revealed higher contents of carotenoids in the ripe fruit (0.16 mg of carotenoid per 100 g KERNEL ) when compared to the unripe fruit (0.05 mg of carotenoid per 100 g KERNEL ). In the total phenolics analysis, there was no change in concentration over ripening time. These results show that kernel oil has physicochemical properties comparable with high-quality commercial vegetable oils, suggesting that it is a promising alternative to conventional vegetable oils.
Fractional calculus is a way to describe mathematically a process, and the foundation of this technique is the replacement of the integer‐order differential with fractional order. The approach used in this study was the Caputo derivative and the process analyzed was the drying of beans, corn, and wheat. The fractional order model was compared with Page and first‐order models. For beans, all the conditions analyzed demonstrated an adequate fit, some divergences were found for corn and wheat. The analysis of variance allowed the generalization of parameter k present in the fractional order model as a function of temperature and the results were a first‐degree equation, for beans and wheat, with and without humidification, and for corn, the equation was a second‐degree one; these were successful results for drying of beans, corn, and wheat in the proposed conditions.
Practical applications
Fractional order model can predict the drying of beans, corn, and wheat grains with higher accuracy in comparison to traditional models applied to drying studies, indicating that the process does not follow a derivative of integer order as usually considered. According to the efficiency values obtained for the generalized model, it was verified that this model can be applied to equipment design and drying process optimization.
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