Mechanisms and Prevention of Plant Tissue Collapse during Dehydration: A Critical Review

Abstract

The appearance and functional properties are primordial in the quality assessment of semifinished fruit and vegetable products. These properties are often associated with shrunken, shriveled, darkened materials of poor rehydration ability after been subjected to air-drying--the most used drying method in the food industry. Fruits and vegetables are cellular tissues containing gas-filled pores that tend to collapse when subjected to dehydration. Collapse is an overall term that has different meanings and scale-settings in the literature depending on whether the author is a plant physiologist, a food technologist, a chemical engineer, or a material scientist. Some clarifications are given in this particular but wide field. The purpose of this work was to make a state-of-the-art contribution to the structural and textural effects of different types of dehydration on edible plant products and give a basis for preventing this phenomenon. The plant tissue is described, and the primordial role of the cell wall in keeping the structural integrity is emphasized. Water and its functionality at macro and micro levels of the cellular tissue are reviewed as well as its transport during dehydration. The effects of both dehydration and rehydration are described in detail, and the term "textural collapse" is proposed as an alternative to structural collapse.

Water transport in cellular tissues during thermal processing

“…29 The details of mechanisms and prevention of plant tissue collapse during dehydration at temperatures below 50 C were covered by. 30 Three pathways of water migration were discussed: intercellular spaces, wall-to-wall, and cell-to-cell. The resistances of each pathway to transport properties were not studied; hence quantification of water diffusivity using the study is not possible.…”

Drying effects on sorption capacity of coastal sediment: The importance of architecture and polarity of organic matter

“…Furthermore, dried soil organic matter is more easily degraded than non-dried soil (Hayashi and Harada, 1969;Marumoto et al, 1977). Similarly, it is well known that the organic matrix of fruits and vegetables can collapse irreversibly after dehydration (Prothon et al, 2003). Here we use the drying effect on the sediment structure to investigate mechanisms of solute-solid sorption.…”

Monitoring and Optimization of the Process of Drying Fruits and Vegetables Using Computer Vision: A Review

“…During the initial stage of AD, shrinkage increases rapidly; the value then slowly increases until it reaches an equilibrium point [80]. It was observed that a stronger shrinkage phenomena occurs in MW and AD dryers than in FD [77,81]. This is because the raised temperature increased the rate of cellular shrinkage following an Arrhenius-type behavior [17].…”