This study suggested a combination of microwave and vacuum drying to meet the requirements of preserving the nutritional content of fresh poniol fruit, consuming lower energy, and having a faster drying rate. In this study, the influence of microwave power, vacuum level, and citric acid pretreatment level on the product quality of dried poniol was analyzed. The citric acid pretreatment was conducted in an ultrasonicator bath. The pretreated was dried by changing the microwave power (X P ) from 400 to 800 W and the vacuum level (X V ) from 300 to 600 mmHg. The quality of the dried product was analyzed in terms of total phenolic content (Y PC ), antioxidant activity (Y AA ), total change in color (Y CC ), and rehydration ratio (Y RR ) of dried poniol fruit.

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The freeze drying encapsulation process was used to encapsulate dragon fruit peel extract with three distinct wall materials: maltodextrin, gum arabica, and gelatin. The process was modeled using a feed forward back propagation artificial neural network with four, eleven, and four neurons in the input, hidden, and output layers. Three of the four input neurons were concentrations of wall material (g), while the fourth was ultrasonication power. The four output neurons were encapsulation efficiency, antioxidant activity, hygroscopicity, and solubility of freeze-dried encapsulation powder. The procedure was optimized using hybrid artificial neural network (ANN) and genetic algorithm (GA) approach. The optimal wall material composition for encapsulation obtained by the integrated ANN and GA was 4.461 g maltodextrin, 3.863 g gum arabic, and 3.198 g gelatin. The optimal ultrasonication power for achieving a homogenous mixture was determined to be 123 W. At the optimal condition, the predicted values for the responses encapsulation efficiency, antioxidant activity, hygroscopicity, and solubility were found to be 88.143%, 81.702%, 6.924 g/100g, and 32.841%, respectively. Under optimal conditions, the relative deviation between the predicted model and experimental outcomes was less than 2.077%. The thermal stability of the encapsulated powder followed the first order kinetic modeling. The results showed that the sample treated at pH of 7 was more thermally stable at 80°C than the sample treated at pH of 3.6. The half-life time was found to be 140 min and 103 min for the sample treated at pH of 7 and 3.6, respectively.

The present investigation studied the influence of ultrasonication power (X Up ), microwave power (X Mp ), and vacuum level (X Vl ) on the quality attributes of dried persimmon fruit. The range of independent variables selected for the study was 100-200 W for X Up , 400-800 W for microwave power and 380-680 mmHg of vacuum level. The best artificial neural network with the lowest relative deviation comprised three input neurons, nine hidden neurons, and four output neurons. According to the experimental design, the range of response rehydration ratiodrying efficiency (Y DE ), and antioxidant activity Y AA ð Þ was found to be 1.524%-2.148, 8.933%-28.854, 33.603%-42.155% and 68.640%-87.809% respectively. The optimized condition according to the integrated ANN-GA model for the process parameters X Up , X Mp , and X Vl was found to be 106.227 W, 421.189 W, and 668.051 mmHg, respectively. Practical applicationsPersimmon is a perishable fruit with a short shelf life. Fruits necessitate preservation strategies to extend their shelf life by reducing moisture content and water activity.Microwave vacuum drying with ultrasound treatment preserves quality characteristics like color, texture, chemical components, and shrinkage while reducing moisture content. Ultrasound pretreated microwave vacuum drying process lowered drying time while improving the quality and efficiency of dried persimmon fruit. Moisture can rapidly diffuse into the surrounding vacuum and prevent structure collapse due to the high vapor pressure caused by microwave vacuum drying. Prior to drying, sonication alters the structure of the fruit tissue, significantly accelerates the drying process and reduces overall processing time.