Cooling and Freezing of Cashew Apple Using Computational Fluid Dynamics: The Effect of the Moisture Content

Abstract

Cashew is a fruit with high nutritional value and great economic importance in the Northeast region of Brazil, however, due to high moisture content, it is highly perishable. Freezing is one the most efficient methods for conservationof biological products, especially, fruits and vegetables. Then, the optimizationof the freezing process by numerical simulation is crucial. In this sense, the objective of this work was to investigate the influence of the moisture content on the cooling and freezing processes of cashew appleby using thecomputational fluid dynamics technique. Results of the cooling and freezing kinetics of the cashew apple and temperature distribution inside the fruitduring these processes are presented and analyzed. It was verified that the variation inthe initial moisture content had small effect in the total time of the process, however the samples with higher moisture content presented higher heat transfer rate during the cooling period and lesser during the freezing period.