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The orange is 5 th most important tropical fruit in the world production. The juice or pulp is extracted from the oranges and preserved for further use. Whereas for fruits and vegetables, osmotic dehydration is considered as one of best method for preservation. Hence in the present research focus on optimize process conditions for osmotic dehydration of orange segments. Fresh orange fruits were peeled and segments were separated. These segments were osmotically dehydrated at different sugar syrup concentrations 40 to 70 0 B, time 60 -300 min. and fruit solution ratio 1:3 to 1:5. The observation recorded with respect to water loss (WL), solid gain (SG) and weight reduction (WR). The results showed 50 0 B sugar syrup concentration, 300 min. time, and 1:4 fruit to solution ratio were optimum conditions to obtain water loss of 44.49 %, solid gain 6.91 % and weight reduction of 51.40%. Osmotic dehydration can be one of the alternative methods for the orange preservation than the traditional methods of food preservations. Also, it will be helpful to preserve orange segments for the longer time, which will be beneficial to small scale entrepreneur to improve their socio-economical status.

The paper reports on the growth of single crystals of calcium sulfite, CaSO, '0.5 H,O, by reaction of aqueous solutions of CaCI, and Na,SO, in silica gels. Na,S03 incorporated gels give spherulites whereas CaCI, incorporated gels give transparent single crystals. The morphology of the crystals depends on the region of the gel and the type of reactant incorporated into the gel-forming solution. Initially formed precipitate and dendrites are converted into good quality single crystals by dissolution and recrystallization processes.

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In continuation to our previous work on the gel growth of single crystals, this paper describes the effect of concentration of feed solution, gel pH, gel density, ageing of gels, intermediate neutral gel and concentration programming on nucleation and growth of CaSO, 0.5 H 2 0 crystals. Transparent single crystals of CaSO, 0.5 H 2 0 have been obtained at low pH and low density gels. Gel ageing and intemediate neutral gel column reduce the nucleation centres and increase the size of crystals without affecting their quality. The nucleation density increases with the increase of concentration of feed solution. By concentration programming the size of the crystals increases.