Blanching of papaya: effect on osmotic dehydration and characterization of the fruit invertase

Abstract

This research evaluated the influence of blanching on osmotic dehydration in sucrose solutions of papaya of Formosa cultivar. The characterization of invertase present in the fruits was also done. Blanching possibly caused damages to the cellular structure resulting in higher water loss, sugar gain and, thus, effective diffusion coefficients than fresh papayas during osmotic dehydration. The invertase extracted from papaya pulp presented optimum temperature of 45 °C and optimum pH of 4.8. Considering the low production cost of papaya and the invertase characteristics, the fruit shows to be a potential source for the referred enzyme extraction.