1 Food and Moisture

Food is any substance consumed to provide nutritional support for the body. It is usually of
plant or animal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins,
vitamins, or minerals. All foods content solids, water and other chemicals. The moisture
contained in a material comprises all those substances which vaporize on heating and lead to
weight loss of the sample. The weight is determined by a balance and interpreted as the
moisture content. According to this definition, moisture content includes not only water but
also other mass losses such as evaporating organic solvents, alcohols, greases, oils, aromatic
components, as well as decomposition and combustion products. The moisture content also
called as moisture assays is one of the most important analyses performed on most of the
food products. Table 1 gives the general idea about the moisture content of different foods.
Water activity measurements parallel to the moisture content is also an important parameter
for quality and stability of food.
.3 Esimation of Moisture Content

Moisture content is the quantity of water contained in a food material. Moisture content is
used in a wide range of scientific and technical areas, and is expressed as a ratio, which can
range from 0 (completely dry) to the value of the materials' porosity at saturation. It can be
given on a volumetric or mass (gravimetric) basis. Moisture content is expressed as a
percentage of moisture based on total weight (wet basis) or dry matter (dry basis). Wet basis
moisture content is generally used. Dry basis is used primarily in research. The moisture
content is expressed by following formulae.

where, M is moisture content on a percent basis, w is total weight (also called as wet weight)
and d is dry weight.
Based on the different forms of moisture present in the food the method used for
measurement of moisture may estimate more or less moisture content. Therefore, for different
food products Official Methods of moisture measurement have been given by agencies like
AOAC (Association of Official Analytical Chemists), AACC (American Association of
Cereal Chemists) and BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards).

Equilibrium Moisture Content (Emc) And Its Importance

Equilibrium Moisture Content (EMC)

Every food exerts a characteristic vapor pressure at a certain temperature and moisture
content. All porous food materials, when in contact with moist air, adsorb or desorb water
molecules to attain equilibrium moisture content. This equilibrium moisture content depends
very strongly on the partial pressure of the water vapor in the surrounding air and rather
weakly on the air temperature that are commonly experienced in drying and storage of foods.
If the moisture content of the food material does not vary with time for a given combination
of water vapor pressure and air temperature, it is then said that it has reached the equilibrium
moisture content (EMC) of the material at that water vapor pressure and temperature. When
left undisturbed, the natural end of any adsorption or desorption process is the attainment of
EMC. This, though a natural process, is often very slow. Food materials may take several
days or weeks to reach equilibrium.

When the water vapor pressure of the air approaches the saturation water vapor pressure at
the temperature of the air, the EMC of food materials rapidly increases. At these stages, the
process undergone by the food material is not only adsorption. Water vapor begins to
condense within the pore structures of the building materials. Theoretically, if the food
material is in contact with air that is 100 % saturated for a very long period, all pores of the
material should be filled with the condensed moisture. The EMC that corresponds to that
hypothetical state is called the saturation moisture content of the material. But in practice the
rate of this process becomes infinitesimally small at an EMC that is known as the capillary
saturation moisture content and is often substantially less than the saturation moisture content
referred to above.

Importance of Equilibrium Moisture Content

The concept of equilibrium moisture content (EMC) is important in the study of

drying and storage of fruits, vegetables and grains. The EMC helps to decide the stability of
food at particular moisture content in the given environment. The EMC values of several
grains and foods have been determined by several research workers and reported in literature.
If exposed to air, high moisture foods, loose moisture whereas low moisture foods gain
moisture in humid air. EMC determines the minimum moisture content to which food can be
dried under a given set of conditions. Also, it determines the maximum amount of moisture
the dehydrated food can absorb during storage.

The EMC can be elaborated by an example given by Hall (1980). If wheat and oats
having 16 % moisture content are kept in the environment of 86°C and 75% relative
humidity, wheat will absorb moisture and oat will lose. This is because of the different vapor
pressures of the moisture in wheat and oat. At above air temperature and humidity the vapor
pressure of wheat is 0.444 psi and oat is 0.477 psi where as vapor pressure of moisture in air
at 86°C and 75% relative humidity is 0.461 psi. Therefore, wheat will gain moisture from air
as vapor pressure of air is more than wheat. At the same time oat will lose moisture as its
vapor pressure is higher than air. There is always tendency of movement of moisture from
higher vapor pressure to lower vapor pressure. The Figure 2 shows the movement of moisture
from and to food.

When the vapor pressure of the water held by food particles becomes equal to the
water vapor pressure of the surrounding air the movement of moisture stops and comes to
equilibrium. At this moment the food product remains at the same moisture content in the
same air temperature and humidity. This moisture is called as equilibrium moisture content.
The relative humidity of air surrounding the food particles at the same conditions is called as
equilibrium relative humidity (ERH) which is also known as water activity (aw).
DRYING METHODS

a) Sun Drying: It consists of spreading fruit/vegetable either on roof tops or floor for drying
in open sun. This method is limited to certain fruits such as raisins, figs, apricots, dates,
peaches and salted fish. After 10-12 days of drying the product is packaged in gunny
bags/wooden boxes and sent to market for local or distant sale. The moisture content is
generally not lowered below 15% which is too high for storage. The quality of product is
inferior, characterized by brownish outer appearance and contaminated with insect dirt/dust
particles. The quality can be improved by spreading the produce on black polythene sheet and
covering it with thin muslin cloth to avoid entry of insects, dust or dirt particles on to the
product.

b) Solar drier: Solar drier is an inclined rectangular box of 1.8 x 0.9 x 0.3 cubic meters. The
internal dimensions made up of wood and lined internally with thermocol and tin sheets. Its
top is covered with a glass sheet and inner sides are painted black. The air inlets and outlets
(dampeners) are provided at the lower and upper ends to help in regulation of air flow and
temperature. On an average 20-30oC higher temperature can be attained inside the dehydrator
as compared to ambient temperature. The loading capacity in solar drier of this size is 25-30
kg fresh fruit/vegetable spread on the trays each measuring 0.9 m× 0.45 m in size. Its
fabrication cost is 5,000 (app.).

Spray driers: A fine dispersion of pre-concentrated food is first “atomized” (sprayed) to

form droplets (10-200 µm in diameter) which are sprayed into the drying chamber at a
temperature of 150-3000C of heated air. The feed rate is controlled to produce an outlet air
temperature of 90-1000C, which corresponds to a wet-bulb and product temperature of 40-
500C. Very short drying time and relatively low product temperature are the main features of
spray driers. The main components of a spray drier include:

 Air heating and circulating system

 A spray forming system comprising of pressure nozzle, centrifugal atomizer
and bowl nozzle
 A drying chamber
 Cyclone separator for product recovery (2 cyclones, scrubber with cloth filter)
For successful drying, complete and uniform atomization is necessary. Different types of
atomizers are centrifugal atomizer, pressure nozzle atomizer, two fluid nozzle atomizer and
ultrasonic atomizer.
Advantages:

 Due to very large surface area of the droplets, the drying is very rapid (1-10 s)
 The temperature of the product remains at the wet bulb temperature of the
drying air.
 There is minimum heat damage to the food.

In spray drier, liquid or fine solid material in slurry form is sprayed in the form of fine
dispersion into a current of heated air. Drying occurs very rapidly, thus this process is very
useful for foods that suffer heat damage on long exposures. Spray driers are mostly used for
milk, egg, coffee, cocoa, tea, potato, ground chicken, ice cream mix, butter, cream, yoghurt,
cheese powder, coffee whitener, fruit juices, meat, encapsulated flavours, wheat and corn
starch products.
Cabinet (tray) drier: In tray driers the wet food is spread evenly/thinly on trays in which
drying takes place. These consist of an insulated cabinet fitted with shallow mesh or
perforated trays, each of which contains a thin (2-6 cm deep) layer of food. Hot air is
circulated through the cabinet at 0.5- 5 m/s per square meter tray area. Ducts or baffles are
used to direct hot air through each tray, to promote uniform air distribution. Heating is by
conduction from heated trays or by radiation from heated surface. The heated air also
removes the vapours. Tray driers are used for small scale production (1-20 t/day) or for pilot
scale work. They have low capital and maintenance costs but have poor control and more
variable product quality.
Fluidized bed drier: Heated air is forced up through a bed of solids under such conditions
that the solids are suspended in to the air. The heated air acts both a fluidizing and drying
medium. Some units have vibrating bases to assist movement of the product. The drier may
be batch or continuous type. The drier is used successfully for drying of peas, beans, carrots,
cocoa, coffee etc. In some cases, dust separators (cyclones) are included in the exhaust air
line to remove fumes.
Advantages

Fluidized bed driers are compact and have good control over drying conditions.

 They provide high thermal efficiencies and high drying rates.

 Since product is mixed by fluidization, it leads to uniform drying.
 Fluidized bed driers are limited to small particulate foods that are capable of
being fluidized without excessive mechanical damage.

Grading machines for fruits and vegetables: There are four types of grading machines for
fruits and vegetables. They are screens, roller grader, and diverging belt grader and weight
grader.

Screens: There is variety of fruits and vegetables which are graded with the help of vibrating
screens made of copper, stainless steel or plastic, which do not react chemically with the
products. The material to be graded is passed over to the vibrating or rotary screen. This
screen is perforated to pass the smallest material at the beginning then medium and lastly the
largest material. In this way, it makes different grades of fruits like, apple, orangeand
vegetables like potato, tomato etc. The material that passes the top of the screen can be
rescreened, and the new fractions can be derived.

Roller grader: This type of graders is fast, accurate and causes little damage to fruit. These
are extensively used in fruit industry. Each roller rotates in a counter clockwise direction. The
fruit is continuously rotated so that each piece has an opportunity to register its minimum
dimension with the space in the grader. Roller conveyers with fixed space between the rolls
are used for removing small fruit, twigs and leaves.

Diverging belt grader: It is widely used grader, which consists of two belts. These belts
diverge as they move. The fruit is carried on and between the belts. Since the distance
between two belts increases gradually and systematically, the smaller pieces will drop
between the belts at the beginning of travel whereas the larger pieces will be carried further
and will be dropped later.
Weight grader: The grading is also done on the basis of weight of product. This method is
accurate, fast and there is minimum damage to fruits or vegetables. This can be used for large
size products like apples, oranges, mango, potato, tomato, eggs etc. These are specially
adapted for sorting material, which cannot be handled by other methods, due to their texture
or shape. The material to be graded is placed in individual cups through automatic feed,
which is then passed through the sorter where it gets indexed with the help of spring loaded
trips. The spring tension is progressively weaker from beginning to end of movement. The
heavier fraction discharge in the beginning whereas lighter fraction next and lightest at the
end. This type of grading is not dependent on shape or size of material.

Fruit Washing Machine

Fruit washing machine is used to clean fruits and vegetables massively. It is important
equipment for fruit pre-treatment, and ensures the cleanliness of raw materials and end
products. It applies to various kinds of fruits, such as apples, oranges, tomatoes, mangoes,
pineapples, lychees, kiwi fruits, etc. Generally, fruit washing machine can be classified into
fruit bubble washing machine and fruit brush and spray cleaning machine.

Fruit bubble washing machine

Fruit bubble washer machine mainly consists of hopper, tank, roller, turnover device, blower,
spray water tube, etc.
When the machine start work, the air flow from the blower keep the water in washing tank
tumbling. During the water rolling, rapid flows scour the surface of raw materials and clear
the impurities and chemical residues away. In this way, the fruit bubble washing machine can
clean the fruits thoroughly without do any damage to the raw materials. So it is especially
 suitable for cleaning fruits and vegetables, and plays an important role in juice processing
line.

Features of fruit bubble washing machine

 With air flow and tumbling water, fruit bubble washing machine is able to clean fruits
efficiently and keep the integrity of the raw materials.
 The control system integrates frequency scaling, seamless shifting and PLC automatic
control, which can conveniently coordinate with downstream equipments.
 The production capacity ranges from 5 to 20 tons per hour. The operation is stable, and the
noise level is lower than 80DB.
 The circulating water in the tank I can send raw materials to the elevator for the following
process, and the washing water can be recycled after filtration.

Fruit brush and spray cleaning machine

Fruit brush and spray cleaning machine is also called brush roller machine. It plays the same
role as fruit bubble washing machine—eliminate the impurities and pesticide residues on
fruits and vegetables. During fruit cleaning process, the brushing and spraying process is
taken simultaneously. Equipped with rows of brushes, it can achieve higher level of
cleanliness than fruit bubble washing machine.
Fruit brush and spray cleaning machine is mainly constituted by water pump, brush, water
tank, shield and rack. The rack, water tank, shield are made of 2mm stainless steel plate,
while the transmission shaft and chain are mad of 1Cr13 stainless steel.

Fruit brush and spray cleaning machine

 Features of fruit brush and spray cleaning machine

 It can achieve thorough cleaning effect with high pressure spray and high-speed rolling brush.
 The height of the machine is convenient to adjust to fit various working condition.
 There is a water tank and filtering screen equipped in the fruit brush and spray cleaning
machine, which can pump water into the tank and filter the stains as the same time.

This fruit washing machine can be customized according to clients’ specific demand

TYPES OF FRUIT HARVESTING MACHINES

Manual Fruit Harvester

It consists of one fixed blade and another moving blade actuated by a spring. There is a net
basket attached to it to collect plucked mango fruits. The long handle facilitates reaching
fruits from ground. During harvesting, the fruit pedicel is adjusted to rest on fixed blade and
pressing the lever at the grip end of the handle actuates the moving blade. The overall length
of the tool is about 3000 mm and the weight of the cutting head is 1.3 kg. The blades are
made from carbon steel. The device is also used for harvesting oranges, apple and sapota

Hold on and twist type

It is a manual-harvesting tool with which individual fruit is first held between two jaws of the
device and then twisted to shear off the stock. The jaws are made of 14 gauge mild steel
sheet. These are held together by a tension spring on a pivot fitted on 10 mm mild steel rod.
A handle can be fitted to the tool. One of the jaws has a lever bracket and rope arrangement
for operating the jaw. Three mm thick rubber sheet padding is provided on inside of the jaws
to avoid any skin damage while holding the fruits. After its detachment, fruit is released by
pulling the cord in to a ring. A cloth conveyor or net is provided below the jaws for collection
of harvested fruits at ground level without any damage. The tool is suitable for harvesting
peach, pear and orange. Its field capacity is 250-300 fruits /man-h.
A manual-harvesting device has been also developed and commercialised for harvesting
mango fruit with panicle. It consists of an oval shaped rings. The bottom ring is meant for
fastening nylon net. A cutting mechanism is provided at the top of the ring and it consists of
double bladed triangular plate together with toothed wheel. This toothed wheel is riveted at
the center of the two fixed cutting blades. The wheel rotates freely about its central rivet and
acts as a conveyor of a mango stock. For fixing a bamboo handle of desired length, a holder
is provided to the harvester opposite to the cutting mechanism. A plastic divider rod bisecting
the cutting mechanism is provided in the ring to guide the stalk of fruits either to the left or to
the right side of the cutting blade. For harvesting mango, the harvester is raised and fruit is
taken in the ring by pulling the harvester. The pedicels of the fruit are taken in between the
toothed wheel and blade. On rotation of a toothed wheel, the pedicle is guided over the sharp
edge of the blade where it is sheared. Field capacity of the device is 140 fruits/h. The devices
are used for harvesting of fruits.

Manually Operated Sapota Harvester

The harvester is used for harvesting of small fruits like lemon, sapota etc. It consists of main
body of PVC having cylindrical shape. The upper end of the body is closed while bottom end
is open to which nylon net for collecting the fruits is tied. A stretched string closes the other
end of the net. A gate is made on the body for entry of the fruits to be harvested. On the lower
surface of the body a metal holder is fixed to hold the bamboo of required length. Two
fingers cut in V-shape and with small sharp blades are provided at the closed end of the body
of the harvester. The fingers help to select and hold the fruit to be harvested from the bunch.
By pulling the harvester, fruit is detached from the bunch, which falls in the body and rolls
into the net. To unload the harvested fruits in the net a stretched string at the closed end of the
net is loosened.