The aim of the study was to evaluate the effect of sonication (S), microwave-vacuum (MWV), convective freezing (F), cryogenic freezing (N), and their combinations, as well as pulsed vacuum osmotic dehydration (PVOD) on the drying kinetics, bioactive compounds, texture and color of whole cranberries during combined hot air convective drying, and microwave-vacuum drying (HACD+MWVD). Drying of berries took from 20 to 493 min. Drying rate was enhanced by 23% and drying time of non-osmotically dehydrated fruits was shortened by 33% using F treatment, while MWV decreased moisture content before drying by 68% and shortened the drying time of PVOD berries by 96%. Generally, total phenolic (TP) content increased during processing, total flavonoids (TF), and total monomeric anthocyanins (TMA) contents decreased, while the values of ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) of dried fruits depended on the initial pretreatment. F and HACD+MWVD yielded fruits of the highest L* (33.8 ± 0.7), a* (25.2 ± 1.0), and b* (7.3 ± 0.6), inflated oval shape, and a small amount of wrinkles on the surface. PVOD and HACD+MWVD resulted in flat and wrinkled fruits.

Coal fly ash (CFA), as a major solid waste of coal-fired power plants in China, is widely applied in building materials, pavement, and soil improvement. However, its potential value hasn’t been fully utilized yet. In recent years, CFA has received attractive attention as a potential raw material to prepare Al-Si alloy because of the main components of SiO2, Al2O3 and a small amount of iron in it. The presence of iron in CFA will benefit the process of carbothermic reduction which can be carried out at lower temperature for preparing Al-Si alloys. On the other hand, the content of iron in the Al-Si alloys products need to be controlled strictly, otherwise it will have the significant influence on the mechanical properties of the alloys and lead to the formation of excessive shrinkage defects. In this paper, we studied the necessity for deironing from Al-Si alloys prepared by CFA via hydrometallurgy pretreatment. Results indicate that the optimal route to prepare the qualified Al-Si alloys products is to remove most of the iron from CFA using hydrometallurgical pretreatment before carbothermic reduction. Other pyrometallurgy refining methods are applied to further deironing if necessary after the primary Al-Si alloys are obtained.