Colour Change Kinetics of Plantain During Refractance Window Drying at Different Temperatures

Abstract

The kinetics of colour changes of unripe plantain slices dehydrated in a RefractanceWindow Dryer is investigated. Dehydration of 6 mm thick plantain slices was performed at 75, 85, and 95 o C and colour change history data was recorded. Evaluation of the colour of the plantain slices was carried out in terms of Hunter colour parameters L, a, and b, as well as the total colour difference (ΔE) representing the residual deviations from the undehydrated stage. The Refractance Window drying process changed the Hunter colour parameters of L, a, and b, causing a colour shift toward the darker region. The values of colour parameters L and b decreased, whereas values of the colour parameter, a, and total colour change (ΔE) increased during Refractance Window drying. The essence of this study is to characterise the effect of dehydration temperature of the change in colour of unripe plantain colour. The findings of this work contribute to a better understanding of colour change kinetics of plantain during dehydration, and the established change kinetics models are a good tool for predicting, evaluating, and controlling of colour change of unripe plantain during the Refractance Window drying process.