Effects of Salt Concentration on Osmotic Dehydration of Green Bean

In this study, mass transfer simulations were performed during the process of osmotic dehydration of green beans in NaCl solutions of 20 and 26.5% at 50 °C. Additionally, the effect of solute concentration on boundary conditions was investigated. For such, a diffusion model – assuming constant diffusivity – and the geometry of an infinite cylinder was considered. A numerical solution was also developed and coupled with an optimizer in order to obtain the process parameters using experimental data. The results were consistent with those mentioned in the literature, for which analytical tools were utilized to describe the process.