An innovative system that dehydrates fruit without heat
2025-08-11
(Press-News.org) Dried fruit is a tasty snack or sweet addition to recipes, but the water removal process often requires heat and energy. In a step toward more sustainable food preservation, researchers reporting in ACS Food Science & Technology have developed a method to dry food at room temperature by adjusting air pressure conditions and using food-safe calcium chloride. In a proof-of-concept, the system successfully dried mango and apple slices to commercial levels.
Dehydrating food turns perishable items such as fruit into long-lasting pantry staples. Most tabletop and industrial-scale food dehydrators use circulated hot air to remove moisture, which is simple and effective but requires a lot of energy. Sun-drying foods uses mostly solar energy but is slow and darkens the final products. So, Luis Bastarrachea is developing food preservation processes that don't require heat. In this recent study, the moisture-adsorbing salt calcium chloride, an ingredient used in cheese and molecular gastronomy applications, was incorporated into a room-temperature dehydration method and tested to see if it would impact the drying fruit’s color.
The researchers built a no-heat dehydrating chamber with three sets of screens above a container of calcium chloride solution. They placed mango and apple slices on the screens and then compared two room-temperature drying methods: one with the chamber at standard air pressure and the other under a slight vacuum.
After four days under standard air pressure, the calcium chloride solutions drew out and adsorbed less moisture from the fruits than those placed under vacuum. The fruit slices at standard air pressure also dried inconsistently. Slices on the top screen contained 50-70% water (by weight) and those on the bottom had 20-30% water after the dehydration process. In contrast, the vacuum-assisted method produced consistently dried mango and apple pieces made up of about 30% moisture, which is similar to the amount in commercially available dried fruit, and represented a removal of approximately 95% of the initial water mass. Vacuum-dried mango pieces kept the raw fruit’s attractive bright yellow color; however, the two dehydration methods darkened the apples by similar amounts. In addition, scanning electron microscopy images showed breakdown of starch granules in all the samples, but more of them broke down under standard pressure, suggesting that the vacuum-assisted method slows down deterioration mechanisms and retains freshness.
And the water pulled out of the fruit could potentially be reused. Bastarrachea says that “the collected water in the calcium chloride solution can be removed by evaporation, and the reconcentrated calcium chloride solution can be reutilized in more dehydration cycles.” Ultimately, the recovered water could be used in industrial applications or further treated for human consumption.
The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Agriculture and Food Research Initiative.
###
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1876 and chartered by the U.S. Congress. ACS is committed to improving all lives through the transforming power of chemistry. Its mission is to advance scientific knowledge, empower a global community and champion scientific integrity, and its vision is a world built on science. The Society is a global leader in promoting excellence in science education and providing access to chemistry-related information and research through its multiple research solutions, peer-reviewed journals, scientific conferences, e-books and weekly news periodical Chemical & Engineering News. ACS journals are among the most cited, most trusted and most read within the scientific literature; however, ACS itself does not conduct chemical research. As a leader in scientific information solutions, its CAS division partners with global innovators to accelerate breakthroughs by curating, connecting and analyzing the world’s scientific knowledge. ACS’ main offices are in Washington, D.C., and Columbus, Ohio.
Registered journalists can subscribe to the ACS journalist news portal on EurekAlert! to access embargoed and public science press releases. For media inquiries, contact newsroom@acs.org.
Note: ACS does not conduct research but publishes and publicizes peer-reviewed scientific studies.
Follow us: Facebook | LinkedIn | Instagram
END
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2025-08-11
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Optica Foundation today announces its new Executive Director of Development, Cara Green.
Building on more than a decade of fundraising experience, Green will lead fundraising efforts for the Optica Foundation as it launches students and early-career professionals into successful careers. There has never been a greater need – or a greater opportunity – to assist the next generation entering the field of optics and photonics. The Optica Foundation is dedicated to doing so, and to recognizing and fostering excellence in students and early-career professionals who ...
2025-08-11
A new UC Berkeley study shows that the so-called love hormone, oxytocin, is also critical for the formation of friendships.
Oxytocin is released in the brain during sex, childbirth, breastfeeding and social interactions and contributes to feelings of attachment, closeness and trust. Never mind that it’s also associated with aggression; the hormone is commonly referred to as the "cuddle" or "happy" hormone, and people are encouraged to boost their oxytocin levels for better well-being by touching friends and loved ones, listening to music and exercising.
But recent studies involving the prairie vole have ...
2025-08-11
Tampa, FL, USA – The Global Virus Network (GVN), a coalition of leading human and animal virologists from 80+ Centers of Excellence and Affiliates in more than 40 countries dedicated to advancing pandemic preparedness, is unequivocally committed to the continued development and deployment of mRNA vaccines and the global scientific collaboration that makes such innovation possible.
Vaccination remains one of public health’s greatest achievements, preventing an estimated 4.4 million deaths ...
2025-08-11
Images
To help manage agricultural practices with fewer or no pesticides, University of Michigan researchers say they need to understand how ecological systems work on agricultural lands.
Now, U-M researchers John Vandermeer and Ivette Perfecto have used two ecological theories to describe a tangle of interactions between three ant species and a recently introduced fly that preys on one of the ant species. Their work on a coffee farm in Puerto Rico shows that the interaction between the ants and the predator fly creates chaotic patterns—chaos in ...
2025-08-11
Water is essential for life on Earth. So, the liquid must be a requirement for life on other worlds. For decades, scientists’ definition of habitability on other planets has rested on this assumption.
But what makes some planets habitable might have very little to do with water. In fact, an entirely different type of liquid could conceivably support life in worlds where water can barely exist. That’s a possibility that MIT scientists raise in a study appearing this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
From lab experiments, the researchers found that a type of fluid known as an ionic liquid can readily ...
2025-08-11
ITHACA, N.Y. – When cells expire, they leave behind an activity log of sorts: RNA expelled into blood plasma that reveal changes in gene expression, cellular signaling, tissue injury and other biological processes.
Cornell University researchers developed machine-learning models that can sift through this cell-free RNA and identify key biomarkers for myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). The approach could lead to the development of diagnostic testing for a debilitating disease that has proved challenging ...
2025-08-11
CAMBRIDGE, MA – The cost of solar panels has dropped by more than 99 percent since the 1970s, enabling widespread adoption of photovoltaic systems that convert sunlight into electricity.
A new MIT study drills down on specific innovations that enabled such dramatic cost reductions, revealing that technical advances across a web of diverse research efforts and industries played a pivotal role.
The findings could help renewable energy companies make more effective R&D investment decisions and aid policymakers in identifying areas to prioritize to spur growth in manufacturing and deployment.
The ...
2025-08-11
Groundbreaking research led by a Swansea University academic has revealed a synthetic glycosystem — a sugar-coated polymer nanoparticle — that can block Covid-19 from infecting human cells, reducing infection rates by nearly 99%.
The glycosystem is a specially designed particle that mimics natural sugars found on human cells. These sugars, known as polysialosides, are made of repeating units of sialic acid — structures that viruses often target to begin infection. By copying this structure, the synthetic molecule acts as a decoy, binding to the virus’s spike protein and preventing it from attaching to real cells.
Unlike vaccines, which trigger immune responses, ...
2025-08-11
Rice University computer scientist Luay Nakhleh, who also serves as the dean of the George R. Brown School of Engineering and Computing, has received a $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation to build a powerful new software infrastructure that could significantly expand how scientists study evolution. The project, titled PhyNetPy, aims to bring the next generation of evolutionary modeling tools into the hands of researchers around the world by enabling the widespread use of phylogenetic networks — complex, ...
2025-08-11
A research team at McMaster University has discovered a new drug class that could someday lead to breakthrough treatments for dangerous fungal infections.
The new molecules, dubbed coniotins, were isolated from a plant-dwelling fungus called Coniochaeta hoffmannii — the samples of which were collected from the McMaster greenhouse, located on the university’s campus.
Detailed recently in the journal Nature Communications, the discovery responds to a critical need for new antifungal medicines.
“There is a huge, growing clinical need for new drugs that target fungal infections,” says Gerry Wright, a ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] An innovative system that dehydrates fruit without heat
