| ABSTRACT The objective of this work was to obtain the drying kinetic curves of white-fleshed ‘pitaya’ peels and characterize the obtained powder regarding physical and chemical parameters. Different mathematical models were fitted to the experimental data of drying kinetics, considering the coefficient of determination (R2), mean square deviation (MSD) and residual distribution as fit criteria. The peels had an initial moisture content of 93.38% (w.b.) and final moisture contents of 5.39% at temperature of 50 °C, 5.27% at 60 °C and 4.40% at 70 °C. After drying, the peels were disintegrated to obtain the powders and characterized for moisture content, reducing sugars, total titratable acidity, ascorbic acid, betacyanins, betaxanthins, water activity and... |
