Thermal properties of fruits and their derivatives: fundamentals and estimation methods

Cruzalegui R.J.; Siche R. · Food Research (2025) · DOI: 10.26656/fr.2017.9(3).3-199

Resumen

The market for selling fruits and their derivatives for consumption requires a safe and harmless industry, with intact physicochemical and organoleptic characteristics between the postharvest stage and the final consumer; studying the fundamentals and methods for estimating the thermal properties of fruits and their derivatives allows us to determine the time parameters, models and equipment design needed to obtain food products that meet customer requirements. In this study, data obtained from the Scopus database were systematized; the search terms were “conductivity”, “diffusivity” and “foods”, and the records obtained showed exponentially increasing trends in the numbers of original and review studies from 1971 to 2022. As a result, the methods for greater application included a simple probe as a heat source, a proximal composition analysis and a differential scanning calorimetry method. Recommending spectral imaging techniques for future research, such as Raman spectroscopy, allows an easy characterization of proximal components in fruits and their derivatives; these techniques can be used to determine thermal properties, such as conductivity, thermal diffusivity, and specific heat, and to conduct comparisons with conventional methods.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional de Trujillo; Universidad Nacional Toribio Rodríguez de Mendoza de Amazonas