Optimization of sugar beet osmotic dehydration by desirability function approach

Osmotic dehydration is a process of partial water removal by immersing foods, mostly fruits and vegetables, in hypertonic solutions. During osmotic dehydration, the removal of water from plant tissue is accompanied by the counter diffusion of solutes from the osmotic solution into the tissue. The purpose of this study is to determine the optimal conditions for osmotic dehydration of sugar beet cossettes using desirability function approach. The optimum operating conditions were found to be a temperature of 50 °C, a sucrose concentration of 70 % (without salt) and a treatment time of around 125 min. At this optimum point, a water loss of 46.9 % and a solid gain of 1.4 % were recorded. Relative to temperature minimization, the following optimum point values were determined: a temperature of 30 °C, a sucrose concentration of 61.4 %, a salt concentration of 8 %, and a treatment time of 240 min. In this instance, a water loss of 40.3 % and a solid gain of 0.04 % were recorded, indicating a significantly lower solid gain value compared to the first optimization results.