STUDY OF ELECTROHYDRODYNAMIC (EHD) DRYING TECHNIQUE FOR SHRIMPS

Abstract

ABSTRACT An innovative drying method for seafood products is presented in this paper. Shrimps, as a representative of seafood products, were dried using ambient air, an electrohydrodynamic (EHD) system at 15C and an oven at 60C. Dried shrimps' shrinkage rate, water absorption, rehydration ratio, solid loss and sensory qualities such as color, texture and trimness were measured. The results indicate that EHD drying could evaporate 71.1% of the shrimps' total moisture on an 8-h exposure. Oven drying at 60C and ambient air drying at 15C for 8 h could sweep 91.8% and 16.4% of the total moisture of shrimps, respectively. The average rates of drying through EHD, oven and ambient air from the first to the sixth hour were 62.95, 81.76 and 16.24 mg/min, respectively. The advantages of EHD-dried shrimps over oven-dried samples include less shrinkage, better rehydration, better color, lower distortion and softer body. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS At present, the conventional drying processes of seafood products often cause heat damage and adversely affect texture, color, flavor and nutritional value of dried products. In response to the disadvantages of conventional drying processes, there is now a growing interest in the use of nonthermal processing of food and similar materials. An example of this is electrohydrodynamic (EHD) drying, which has been developed only recently. At present, there are only few reports on drying seafood products using EHD. Thus, this study has investigated EHD-dried shrimps for the first time. The results indicate that EHD drying is more efficient in terms of energy saving; quality factors for EHD-dried shrimps exhibited less shrinkage, better rehydration, better color, lower distortion and softer body than the oven drying. These results have shown an innovative method for seafood products drying.