Comparative analysis of the effects of drying processes (sun-drying and

freeze-drying) on nutritional quality of green beans.

Hicham EL FEROUALI, Ahmed ZOUKIT, Issam SALHI, Said DOUBABI, Naji ABDENOURI*
LSET, Applied Physics Department, Cadi Ayyad University Marrakesh, Morocco.
hichamelferouali@gmail.com, n.abdenouri@uca.ma

Abstract:The present paper evaluates the effect of freeze-drying and sun-dryingon the nutritional quality
of the dried green beans. To assess the quality of the product, the following constituents were taken into account:
sugars, proteins, vitamin Cand polyphenols. Thereby, the amounts of sugars (529.44 mg/g DM), proteins (8.69
mg/g DM), polyphenols (1.98 mg equivalent Gallic acid/g DM) and vitamin C (2.98 mg/g DM) were highly
conserved. Contrariwise, the sun-drying processes caused a significant decreaseof these constituents’
concentrationto be (205.37 mg/g DM for sugars, 5.67 mg/g DM for proteins, 1.17 mg/g DM for Vitamin C and
1.08 mg equivalent Gallic acid/g DM for polyphenols).
Keywords:Freeze-drying, Direct sunlight drying, Green beans, Nutritional quality.

1. Introduction
Traditional drying by exposing products to sun is considered as one of the most common and convenient
drying methodsof fruitsand vegetables in the developing countries. However, this drying technique has some
disadvantages like the color and the quality of the dried products that are significantly affected[1].In some cases,
at the industry scale, other techniques are used such as freeze-drying. Thistechnique is based on two main stages:
1/ the dehydration by sublimation of a frozen product, followed by a 2/ desorption. Due to low temperatures and
to the absence of liquid water, most deterioration and microbiological reactions are stopped. Despite of many
advantages, freeze-drying has always been recognized as an expensive process in terms of energy
consumption[2].
The studied product belongs to Phaseolus gender and Fabaceae family. It is original from South and
Central America [3] before being transported to other continents [4]. In Morocco, green beans is the second more
exported vegetable after tomato. Exports rose sharply in 2009, reaching quickly 30 000 tones [5]. Then, they
reached 73 000 tones in 2015-2016 season.
The heat and mass transfers that occur within products during the drying process cause large physical,
chemical and biological changes. Hence, the evolution of these parameters must be controlled in order to achieve
the desired quality. Dryingagricultural products provides a wide range of phytochemicals [3] in addition to the
degradation of some sensitive bioactive compounds. For instance, studies on banana [4] and plums [5] have
shown that the drying process at high temperatures leads to a high drop of phenolic content and a weak
antioxidant activity.
Some previous workshad studiedthe effect of convective drying on the physical and hygroscopic behavior
of green beans[1], but there is lack of papers that had studied the effect of freeze dryingon its quality parameters.
Ultimately, themain aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of freeze drying of green beans on its quality
parameters. The parameters taken into account to assess the quality of the dried product are: sugars, proteins,
vitamin C and polyphenols.

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2. Materials and methods
2.1. Drying techniques
Two drying techniques were performed in the present work namely: Direct sunlight drying in which
samples were exposed directly under solar radiation (a mean of 850 W/m²) for 3 days (discontinuous drying).
The ambient temperature was almost 36 °C. And, freeze-drying in which samples werefrozen at -20 °C and then
lyophilized during 20 hours using a lyophilizer (Alpha 2-4 LP+) at a temperature of -80 °C and a pressure of 0.1
Pa. The second stage of desorption was identified to start for 6hoursat a temperature of 40 °C.
2.2. Biochemical characterization
The biochemical protocols used to determinethe quality parametersare described below:The sugar content
was determined by the method described by Dubois et al. [9]. The absorbance of samples was measured at 495
nm. Sugar content was determined by reference to standard range of Glucose.
The total protein content was determined according to Bradford [10]. The absorbance was determined at
595 nm, and the results were expressed in Bovine Serum Albumin equivalent (BSA) by reference to a standard
range prepared in the same conditions.
For the determination of vitamin C content; the method used was the direct titration of vitamin C with
diiodine. To achieve that, 1 g of the product was homogenized with 20 ml of distilled water. After filtering, 10
ml of the filtrate was added to 10 ml of distilled water and a few drops of starch. Titration was carried out by
diiodine at 510-3 mol/l until discoloration.
For the determination of total phenols; 100 mg of samples were ground in 2 ml of methanol at 80%. Then,
the mixture was sonicated for 10 min in an ultrasonic bath containing ultrapure water. The homogenates were
centrifuged at 15 000g during 10min. Supernatants (phenolic extracts) were tested by a differential assay in the
presence and absence of polyvinylpolypyrrolidine (PVPP) according to Bridi et al. [11].
All measurements were performed in triplicate and reported as mean and standard deviation. All data
were analyzed using the SPSS 21.0 statistical package. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by the
Student Newman–Keuls post hoc test was used to compare differences in the means. The level of significance
was defined as P<0.05.

3. Results and discussions

It was noticed that drying led to a decrease of the sugars content (Figure 1). This reduction is due to
degradation of sugars by Maillard reactions.The same trend was revealed by the work carried out on onions in
which sugars content decreased by about 40 % after drying at 70 °C [12].Furthermore, freeze dried samples
recorded higher total sugars content (529.44 mg/g DM) compared to direct sunlight dried ones. Hence, the sugars
content in freeze-dried samples reduced only by (19.38 mg/g DM) compared to fresh ones. Contrariwise, direct
sunlight dried samples led to a very low value (205.37 mg/g DM). In addition, it was perceived that bothof the
studied drying techniques led tolower proteins content compared to the fresh product(Figure 1).The highest value
was obtained by the freeze-drying technique (8.69 mg/g DM). On the other hand, direct sunlight drying led to the
low value (5.67 mg/g DM).This decrease in proteins content for the second case could be explained by the
proteinsdenaturation after exposure to high temperatures. Moreover, anotable decrease of Vitamin Cwas noticed
after drying (Figure 2). The freeze-dried samples recorded the highest value (2.98 mg/g DM)anddirect
sunlightdried sampleshad the lowest vitamin C content (1.17 mg/g DM).This decrease is related to the sensitivity
of vitamin C to heat, and to different oxidation reactions. Ascorbic acid in fruits and vegetables is decomposed
by ascorbic acid oxidase or by non-enzymatic oxidation, and this decomposition is accelerated at high
temperatures [13]. Finally, the highest total polyphenols content in dried samples is assigned to the freeze-dried
ones (1.98 mg equivalent Gallic acid/g DM) (Figure 2), and lower total polyphenols content was observed in the
directsunlight dried samples(1.08 mg equivalent Gallic acid/g DM).The decrease in the total polyphenols content
in the dried beans could be attributed to the activation of oxidative enzymes which contribute to destruction of
phenolic compounds [14].

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 Protein content

Figure 1. Sugars content (mg glucose equivalent/g DM) and proteins content (mg protein/g DM) in
green beans.

Figure 2. Vitamin C content (mg/g DM) and total polyphenols content (mg equivalent Gallic acid/g
DM) in green beans.

4. Conclusion
The present paperpresentsa comparison between the impacts of freeze-dryingandsun-drying on the main
quality criteria of green beans.Highnutritional quality of the product was obtained by freeze-drying.Indeed, the
concentrations of sugars, proteins, total polyphenols and vitamin C recordedhigher values for freeze-dried
compared to direct sun-dried green beans.Thus, the measured values were (2.98 against 1.53 mg/gDMfor
vitamin C), (8.69 against 5.675 mg/g DMfor proteins), polyphenols (1.98 against 1.3595 mg equivalent Gallic
acid/g DM) and (529.44 against 205.37 mg/g DMfor sugars), respectively. The poor-quality of sun-dried
materials harms to the expected added value of the dried green beans. However, although the freeze-drying
method led to the best nutritional quality of the final product, this method needs advanced technology and
consumes a lot of energy.

Acknowledgement
This work was supported by the research institute for solar energy and new energies (IRESEN) as part of
the project SSH and all of the authors are grateful to the IRESEN institute for its cooperation.

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