Received: 18 April 2020 | Revised: 27 May 2020 | Accepted: 3 June 2020

DOI: 10.1111/jfpp.14674

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Effect of three drying methods on the drying kinetics and

quality of acerola cherry

Bei Song1 | Haisheng Tan2 | Jinsong Yang1

1
College of Food Science and Engineering,
Hainan University, Haikou, China
2
School of Materials Science and
Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou,
China
Correspondence
Jinsong Yang, College of Food Science and
Engineering, Hainan University, Haikou,
Hainan 570228, China.
Email: food868@163.com, hnyangjinsong@
hainanu.edu.cn
Funding information
National Natural Science Foundation of
China, Grant/Award Number: 31960678;
Natural Science Foundation of Hainan
Province, Grant/Award Number:
ZDYF2019077
Abstract
The effects of hot air drying (HAD), vacuum drying (VD), and microwave drying (MD)
on the drying kinetics of acerola cherry were investigated and the quality attributes
of acerola cherry powder obtained by vacuum freeze-drying (VFD), HAD, and VD
were compared and analyzed, as well as the effects of four antioxidants on the ascor-
bic acid (AA) content. Results showed that the drying time shortened with the in-
crease in temperature, which required by MD was the shortest. The Logaritmic model
and Two Term model accurately described the drying kinetics of acerola cherry. The
phytic acid was more effective in protecting the AA of cherry powder obtained by
VFD, which had excellent rehydration and solubility, and its reducing sugar and total
sugar contents were significantly different from that of HAD and VD. However, the
total acid content of acerola cherry powder dried by VD was the highest. These find-
ings provide a theoretical basis for the drying of acerola cherry.
Practical applications
As one of the veritable “king of natural vitamin C”, acerola cherry has rich nutritional
value. Drying has become an important trend in the processing of acerola cherry
due to its high moisture content, as well as perishable and unpreservability. The re-
sults provide a choice for the drying technique of acerola cherry and show that the
Logarithmic and Two Term models accurately described the drying kinetics, and the
best preservation of AA, reducing sugar, and total sugar in acerola cherry powder
obtained by VFD.

1 | I NTRO D U C TI O N maturation period mainly from May to November, which is in the

Acerola cherry is native to the Caribbean region of the west Indian,
also known as Malpighia glabra. The cultivation of acerola cherry is
restricted to a few regions in China, such as Hainan province and
Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region for it is heavily influenced by
climate. Acerola cherry is a popular fruit, which is rich in vitamin
C, vitamin B1, dietary fiber, and the unique anti-decrepitude fac-
tor—superoxide dismutase (Johnson, 2003). These physiochemical
compounds are important components that cannot be deficient
in maintaining human life, which can prevent scurvy, antitumor,
and have certain effects on beauty and cancer (Sun, Shen, Liu, &
Ye, 2015). Different from other fruits, acerola cherry has a long
high temperature and rainy season. Fresh acerola cherries have high
metabolism after harvest and they are not stable in storage and are
prone to corruption, resulting in economic losses, and environmental
problems, which restrict the development of the acerola cherry in-
dustry (Colgecen & Adayauthor, 2015). Therefore, the deep process-
ing of acerola cherries can not only reduce the loss but also improve
their added value.
Fresh acerola cherries have a high moisture content and will
ferment quickly at room temperature to produce wine flavor that
affects their quality. Drying is an effective way to process acerola
cherries, which can limit the degradation of enzymes and the
growth of microorganisms to prolong the shelf life and increase the

J Food Process Preserv. 2020;00:e14674. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jfpp © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC. | 1 of 10

https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.14674
2 of 10 | SONG et al.
variety of products (Deng et al., 2018). Several drying techniques
are widely used in the fruit and vegetable processing industry, such
as HAD, VD, MD, and VFD. The HAD uses hot air as the drying
medium to exchange moisture and heat with food by the convec-
tion circulation. The HAD is a common dehydration way with low
cost in fruit and vegetable processing, such as blueberry (Zielinska
& Michalska, 2016), pumpkin slices (Seremet, Botez, Nistor,
Andronoiu, & Mocanu, 2016), and pear (Tang et al., 2016), but the
high drying temperature is easy to cause the change in material
quality (Talens, Arboleya, Castro-Giraldez, & Fito, 2017). The VD
can induce the evaporation of water through low pressure and the
low oxygen partial pressure is conducive to the reduction of the
material oxidation, but the drying process is characterized by high
humidity and long drying time (Tang et al., 2016). The MD, which
reduces drying time by heating and evaporating the moisture inside
the material by microwave, has been used in citrus peel (Ghanem,
Mihoubi, Kechaou, & Mihoubi, 2012), carrot (Liu et al., 2019), and
chrysanthemum (Wang et al., 2018). Scholars have studied the dry-
ing characteristics and drying models of a variety of fruits and veg-
etables under different drying techniques and summarized several
commonly used empirical or semi-empirical mathematical models,
such as Newton (Lewis, 1921; Mujumdar, 1987), Henderson and
Pabis (Henderson & Pabis, 1961), Logaritmic (Wang et al., 2018),
and Two Term (Wang et al., 2018), to describe the drying behav-
ior of fruits and vegetables. In addition, the processing of acerola
cherry has been widely concerned due to its strong antioxidant ef-
fects. Fresh acerola cherries are rich in AA, which is unstable and
easily oxidized by light, temperature, and oxygen during processing.
The effects of different antioxidant treatments before drying on
AA levels in a variety of fruits and vegetables, such as okra (Gao,
Zhang, Zhou, Wu, & Bi, 2015) and haw fruits (Gao et al., 2006), have
been studied, except for acerola cherry. So far, HAD, VD, and VFD
have been used to dry acerola cherry before studying the quality
of acerola cherry powder, and VFD can effectively maintain the
original flavor and nutrition of fruits due to the appropriate drying
temperature and time (Liu et al., 2020). However, there is no liter-
ature available about the effects of different drying techniques on
the drying kinetics of acerola cherry, and the effects of different
antioxidant treatments on the AA content in acerola cherry have
not been reported.
Therefore, this study explored the effects of HAD, VD, and MD
on the drying kinetics of acerola cherry under several temperatures
(60, 70, and 80°C) or power (280, 420, and 560 W), and adopted
four commonly used drying models of fruits and vegetables to fit
the experimental data, to select the most suitable model to describe
the drying behavior of acerola cherry. From this work, the effects
of four antioxidant treatments on the AA content in acerola cherry
were also accessed. To evaluate the quality of dried samples under
three drying conditions (HAD and VD: 70°C, 18 hr; VFD: pre-frozen
at −50°C for 5 hr and dried for 48 hr at 50°C), the physicochemi-
cal properties were investigated. The value of this work is not only
to provide a theoretical basis for acerola cherry drying but also to
provide an important reference for better preserving the physico-
chemical properties of dried acerola cherry.
2 | M ATE R I A L S A N D M E TH O DS
2.1 | Materials
Acerola cherries were collected from the acerola cherry base
(Dingan, Hainan Province, China) and transported back to the labo-
ratory in foam boxes containing ice bags. Skin damaged and decayed
acerola cherries were removed, and acerola cherries with similar
shape and size and the same maturity were selected as the experi-
mental samples. The initial moisture content of acerola cherry was
86.84% ± 0.4% (wet basis), which was determined according to GB/T
5009.3-2016 (2016b). Sodium sulfite, potassium sorbate, phytic
acid, and tea polyphenols were purchased from Shanghai Yuanye
Biological Technology Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China).
2.2 | Drying equipment and processes
2.2.1 | Hot air drying
The drying temperatures of hot air drying equipment were 60, 70,
and 80°C, and the drying temperature referred to the temperature
of the heating medium. The flow rate of hot air was 1 m/s and the
sample was weighed every 1 hr until the mass change of dry materi-
als was less than 0.02 g. The weighing time was controlled within
the 20 s to minimize the error. The test dosage of each group was
300 ± 6g. All tests were carried out in triplicate.
2.2.2 | Microwave drying
The powers of microwave drying equipment were 280, 420, and
560 W. At the set power, the sample was weighed every 60 s until the
mass change of dry materials was less than 0.02 g. The weighing time
was controlled within 20 s to minimize the error. The test dosage of
each group was 300 ± 6g. All tests were carried out in triplicate.
2.2.3 | Vacuum drying
The drying temperatures of vacuum drying equipment were 60, 70,
and 80°C, and the drying temperature referred to the temperature
of the material tray. The vacuum of the equipment was 3,500 Pa.
The sample was weighed every 1 hr and the vacuum was stopped
and the pressure was released during sampling. When the drying
room reached normal pressure, the material was quickly taken out
and weighed. The test dosage of each group was 300 ± 6 g. All tests
were carried out in triplicate.
SONG et al. | 3 of 10

2.3 | Analysis of the drying characteristic TA B L E 1 Common mathematical models for drying fruits and
vegetables

2.3.1 | Moisture ratio Model name Model expression

Newton MR = exp(−kt)
The moisture content (Mt) at any time of acerola cherry (g water per
Henderson and Pabis MR = a exp(−kt)
g dried matter (DM)) was calculated according to Equation (1) (Li
Logaritmic MR = a exp(−kt)+ b
et al., 2019):
Two Term MR = a1 exp(−k1t) + a2 exp(−k2t)

Wt − Wd Note: t was the drying time; k, k1, k2, a, a1, a2 were the constant
Mt = (1)
Wd coefficients of models.

where Wt is the mass of materials at any time (g) and Wd is the DM

mass of the material (g). ∑N � �2
MRexp,i− MRpre,i
The moisture ratio (MR) was calculated according to Equation (2) R2 = 1 − ∑
i=1
(6)
N � �2
(Li et al., 2019): i=1 MRexp,i −−MRpre,i

Mt − Me
MR = (2) ∑N � �2
M0 − Me 2 i=1 MRexp,i − MRpre,i (7)
𝜒 =
N− Z

where Mt, M 0, and Me are the moisture content at any time (%), ini-
tial moisture content (%), and equilibrium moisture content (%), re-
� ∑N � �2 � 12
MRexp,i− MRpre,i
RMSE =
i=1 (8)
spectively. Since M0 and Mt are much larger than Me, Equation (2) (Li N
et al., 2019) can be simplified to Equation (3):

Mt where MRexp,i, MRpre,i, N, and Z are the experimental MR, predicted

MR = (3)
M0 MR, number of data, and number of constants, respectively.

The drying rate (DR) was calculated by Equation (4) (Li et al., 2019):
2.3.3 | Effective moisture diffusivity (Deff )
Mt∕Δt − Mt
DR = (4)
Δt In general, the transfer of moisture in the drying process is con-
trolled by internal diffusion and the Deff can be used to explain dry-
where Δt refers to the drying time intervals under different drying ing behavior (Bai, Sun, Xiao, Mujumdar, & Gao, 2013). Fick's second
conditions (t). law of diffusion (Equation 9) can be used as a mass-diffusion equa-
tion to describe the drying of acerola cherry when the drying pro-
cess occurs during the falling rate period (Bai et al., 2013; Xiao,
2.3.2 | Mathematical modeling of drying Pang, et al., 2010).

The five kinds of common mathematical models were used to fit the 𝜕M (9)
= Deff ∇2 M
𝜕t
drying curve of experimental data to describe the moisture changes
in materials under different drying conditions. Model types and for- The solution of the diffusion equation can be expressed as
mulas are shown in Table 1. Equation (10) with the assumption that uniform initial moisture
The fitting degree of each model to the experimental curves distribution, constant temperature, constant diffusivity, negligible
was determined by the determination coefficient (R2), reduced chi- shrinkage, and external resistance (Bai et al., 2013; Xiao, Gao, Lin, &
square (χ 2), sum of squares for error (SSE), and root mean square Yang, 2010; Xiao et al., 2012).
2
error (RMSE). R was positively correlated with the fitting degree,
while RMSE, χ 2, and SSE were negatively correlated with it (Zheng,
∞
D t
( )
6 ∑ 1
MR = exp −n2 2 eff
𝜋 (10)
2012). These parameters are shown in Equations (5)–(8) (Wang et al., 𝜋 2 n = 1 n2 r2
2018):
where Deff is the effective moisture diffusivity, m2/s; r is the volume
N
(5) equivalent radius of the material, m; t is the drying time, s; n is the
∑ ( )2
SSE = MRexp,i − MRpre,i
i=1 number of groups considered.
4 of 10 | SONG et al.
For materials with long drying time, the above equation can be
simplified to Equation (11):
) ( 2 ) The solubility of acerola cherry powder was determined by the
𝜋 Deff
(
6 method of Gong, Zhang, Mujumdar, and Sun (2008), with minor
lnMR = ln − t (11)
𝜋2 r2
There, the slope (k) can be obtained from the linear regres-
sion of lnMR versus time curves and the Deff can be obtained from
Equation (12):
𝜋 2 Deff
k= (12)
r2
2.4 | Effects of antioxidants on the ascorbic
acid content
The effects of sodium sulfite, potassium sorbate, phytic acid, and
polyphenols on the AA in acerola cherry were studied. The 0.02%
concentration of different antioxidants was applied to acerola
cherry, and then the treated samples were dried by three drying
techniques. The sample obtained from HAD was acerola cherry
dried at 70°C for 18 hr in a blast air oven. The sample obtained from
VD was acerola cherry dried at 70°C for 18 hr in a vacuum drying
oven with a vacuum degree of 3,500 Pa. The sample obtained from
VFD was acerola cherry pre-frozen for 5 hr at −50°C and dried for
48 hr at 50°C in a vacuum freeze dryer. The dried samples obtained
from three drying techniques were put into a high-speed universal
pulverizer to make a powder (Liu et al., 2020). The AA content in
acerola cherries was determined according to GB 5009.86-2016
(2016a).
2.5 | Physical characteristics
2.5.1 | Rehydration capacity
The powder of acerola cherry obtained from three drying techniques
(HAD, VD, and VFD) was used to determine its rehydration capacity.
The rehydration of acerola cherry powder was determined by Chen
et al. (2017), with minor modifications. One gram acerola cherry
powder was placed in a 50 ml centrifuge tube and 20 ml of distilled
water was added, and then allowed to stand for 1 hr at room temper-
ature. The precipitate was obtained by centrifugation (4,000 rpm,
25 min) and the mass of the precipitate was the mass of rehydration
powder. The rehydration capacity (RC) of acerola cherry powder was
calculated by the following formula:
m − m1
RC (%) = 2 × 100 (13)
m2
where m1 and m2 are the mass of acerola cherry powder before and
after rehydration, respectively.
2.5.2 | Solubility
modifications. One gram acerola cherry powder was dissolved in
100 ml of distilled water and stirred evenly. After the rehydrated
sample was centrifuged at 4,000 rpm for 5 min, 25 ml of supernatant
was transferred to a dry glass container and then baked at 105°C for
5 hr. The solubility of the powder was determined by the differential
weight method.
2.6 | Determination of the nutrient composition
2.6.1 | Reducing sugar content
The reducing sugar content in acerola cherry powder was deter-
mined according to the method described by AOAC (2006). Glucose
was used to establish the standard curve and the absorption value
of the experimental sample was measured at 540 nm. The content of
reducing sugar could be obtained by comparing it with the standard
curve.
2.6.2 | Total sugar content
The total sugar content in acerola cherry powder was determined
according to the method described by AOAC (2006). Glucose was
used to establish the standard curve and the absorption value of the
experimental sample was measured at 620 nm. The content of total
sugar could be obtained by comparing it with the standard curve.
2.6.3 | Total acid content
The total acid content of acerola cherry powder was evaluated ac-
cording to GB/T 12456-2008 (2008), with minor modifications.
About 25 g of acerola cherry powder was weighed to 0.001 g accu-
racy, put into a 100 ml beaker. The boiled water at 80 °C was added
and transferred to a 250 ml volumetric flask, followed by boiling
(30 min), returned to room temperature. The boiled water was used
to replenish up to 250 ml and then the filtrate was obtained by fil-
tration. Twenty-five milliliters of the filtrate was weighed, put into a
250 ml conical flask. Fifty milliliters of boiled water and 0.2 ml of 1%
phenolphthalein indicator were added. The sample was titrated with
0.1 mol/L of standard titration solution of sodium hydroxide to red-
dish color, maintaining fadeless for 30 s, and the volume (V1) of stand-
ard titration solution of sodium hydroxide consumed was recorded.
The total acid content (X) was calculated using the following formula:
( )
C × V1 − V2 × K × F
X= × 1000 (14)
m
SONG et al.
where c is the concentration of the standard titration solution of
sodium hydroxide; V1 and V2 are the volumes of the standard titra-
tion solution of sodium hydroxide consumed by the titration test and
blank test, respectively; K is the conversion factor of the acid; F is
the dilution factor of the test solution; m is the mass of the sample.
2.7 | Statistical analysis
The SPSS 22.0 software (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA) was used to
analyze the data systematically, then the multivariate nonlinear re-
gression fitting was performed using Origin 8.0 software. One-way
ANOVA was performed to determine significant differences by the
Duncan's multiple range test. Comparisons among multiple groups
were made with two-way ANOVA followed by the Tukey's test.
p < .05 indicated a statistically significant difference.
3 | R E S U LT S A N D D I S CU S S I O N
3.1 | Drying characteristics
The effects of three drying techniques on drying curves of acerola
cherry are shown in Figure 1a–c. The drying time shortened with
the increasing of drying temperature, and the high temperature, as
an important factor in drying kinetics, can generate sufficient ther-
mal driving force and effectively promote the water diffusion (Deng
et al., 2018). Among them, the vacuum drying time of acerola cherry
to reach a constant weight at all temperatures was obviously shorter
than that of hot air drying and the drying time of microwave drying
was the shortest under all power.
The effects of three drying techniques on drying rate curves of
acerola cherry are shown in Figure 1d–f. The rate of hot air drying
raised with an increase in the drying temperature and decreased with
the extension of drying time. And the results were similar to those re-
ported in blueberry (Zielinska & Michalska, 2016) and pumpkin slices
(Seremet et al., 2016). The initial drying rate of vacuum drying reached
the maximum at 80°C and then decreased rapidly to the constant
speed stage with the increase in the temperature. In the initial stage,
the drying rate of microwave drying rapidly increased to the peak and
then directly entered the slow drying stage, without an obvious con-
stant drying stage. Finally, the drying rate gradually flattened out to
zero. As shown in Figure 1, the drying rate of samples dried by micro-
wave drying was faster than that of samples dried by vacuum drying
or hot air drying.
3.2 | Mathematical model and Deff
The four common mathematical models (Table 1) of fruit and vege-
tables were used to describe the drying kinetics of acerola cherry.
The values of R 2 (varied from 0.8588 to 0.99986), RMSE (from
| 5 of 10
0.0035 to 0.1397), χ2(from 0.00001 to 0.01812), SSE (0.00033
to 0.2537), and the constant coefficients of all models are shown
in Table 2. The Logaritmic model was the optimal model to de-
scribe the drying behavior of HAD1, HAD3, VD1, MD2, and MD3.
The Two-term model was used to reasonably fit the experimental
data of HAD2, VD2, VD3, and MD1. The Logaritmic model was
previously used to predict the drying curves of sugarcane straw
(Rueda-Ordóñez, 2018), chrysanthemum (Wang et al., 2018).
The Two-term model has better representation for pear (Tang
et al., 2016).
The internal moisture migration of acerola cherry during the
drying process can be explained by the Fick's second law. The Deff
values of hot air drying were 1.74 × 10–10, 4.97 × 10–10, and 8.7 ×
10–10 m2/s, vacuum drying were 4.6 × 10–10, 4.5 × 10–10, 1.02 ×
10–9 m2/s and that of microwave drying were 2.93 × 10–8, 3.5 × 10–8,
and 4.56 × 10–8 m2/s respectively. Some of these values did not
exist in the general range of 10–11 to 10–9 m2/s for a variety of foods
(Zielinska & Michalska, 2016), and the result was similar to those re-
ported in carrot (Liu et al., 2019). The Deff increased with the increase
in temperature in the same drying method, and the Deff of vacuum
drying was higher than that of hot air drying at the same drying tem-
perature. The highest Deff of microwave drying was caused by the
fact that microwaves had certain penetrability to the material and
heated the internal material, which was more conducive to the mois-
ture diffusion.
3.3 | Effects of antioxidants on the ascorbic
acid content
The acerola cherries have abundant ascorbic acid but easily de-
stroyed by adverse factors such as high temperature or pressure in
the drying process. The effect of antioxidant on the AA content of
acerola cherries dried by the different drying methods is shown in
Figure 2. Two-way ANOVA was used to determine factors affecting
the AA content including drying techniques and antioxidants. Three
drying techniques, different antioxidant treatments, and their inter-
actions had significant effects on AA levels (p < .001). The AA con-
tent of acerola cherry powder obtained from vacuum drying and that
of vacuum freeze-drying was significantly different from that of hot
air drying. This was since AA was sensitive to oxidation and unstable
at high temperature for a long time (Deng et al., 2020), while the
conditions of vacuum and low temperature could effectively protect
the easily oxidized components and prevent their decomposition.
The results also showed that phytic acid and tea polyphenols had
no significant effect on AA content and their antioxidant effect was
superior to other antioxidants under the three drying conditions.
Among them, the AA content of acerola cherries powder without an-
tioxidant treatment in hot air drying and vacuum drying was higher
than that with antioxidant protection, which might be caused by the
dissolution of ascorbic in the water when acerola cherries were im-
mersed in the antioxidants.
6 of 10 | SONG et al.

(a) 1.0 (d) 0.015

0.8 0.012

/g water g dried matter-1 min-1

Moisture ratio
0.6 0.009

Drying rate
0.4 0.006

0.2 0.003

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
t (min) t(min)

(b) 1.0
(e) 0.020

0.8 0.016

/g water g dried matter-1 min-1

Moisture ratio

0.6 0.012

Drying rate
0.4 0.008

0.2 0.004

0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 1400 1600
t (min) t (min)

(c) 1.0 (f) 1.0

560W 280W
420W 420W
0.8 280W 0.8
560W
/g water g dried matter-1 min-1
Moisture ratio

0.6 0.6
Drying rate

0.4 0.4

0.2 0.2

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 0 3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24
t (min) t (min)

F I G U R E 1 Drying curves and drying rate curves of acerola cherry in different drying methods. (a) and (d) were drying curves and drying
rate curves of the hot air drying; (b) and (e) were drying curves and drying rate curves of the vacuum drying; (c) and (f) were drying curves
and drying rate curves of the microwave drying

3.4 | Rehydration and solubility
The rehydration capacity is an important characteristic to measure
the quality of dried products, which can reflect the physical char-
acteristics of dried products, and the rehydration ability mainly de-
pends on the drying methods and the material properties (Aral &
Beşe, 2016). The effects of different drying methods on the rehydra-
tion and solubility of acerola cherry powder are shown in Figure 3.
In this study, the solubility of acerola cherry powder obtained from
vacuum freeze-drying was the best, while the solubility of acerola
cherry powder obtained by vacuum drying and hot air drying was
not significantly different. The long drying time of hot air might
damage the cell structure, resulting in the lower rehydration of ace-
rola cherry powder dried by hot air drying. The conditions such as
vacuum and low temperature accelerated the moisture diffusion of
the materials, which contributed to maintaining the porous structure
SONG et al. | 7 of 10

TA B L E 2 Regression results of drying models for acerola cherry under different drying conditions

Model No. R2 RMSE χ2 SSE k(k1) k2 b a(a1) a2

Newton HAD1 0.9477 0.06830 0.00484 0.12597 0.00121

HAD2 0.97289 0.05101 0.00272 0.05985 0.00225
HAD3 0.97079 0.05557 0.00328 0.05249 0.00358
VD1 0.93203 0.08739 0.00794 0.19855 0.00169
VD2 0.96514 0.05648 0.00334 0.07018 0.00212
VD3 0.93772 0.08396 0.00752 0.1128 0.00354
MD1 0.93443 0.08821 0.00815 0.17117 0.12579
MD2 0.93671 0.08662 0.00786 0.16505 0.13089
MD3 0.91695 0.09966 0.01048 0.18872 0.1226
Logaritmic HAD1 0.99986 0.00350 0.00001 0.00033 0.00035 −1.38785 2.38509
HAD2 0.99606 0.01944 0.0004 0.00869 0.00158 −0.18899 1.1964
HAD3 0.99117 0.03055 0.00113 0.01587 0.0029 −0.11403 1.15992
VD1 0.98645 0.03901 0.00172 0.03957 0.0010 −0.41409 1.4663
VD2 0.99438 0.02267 0.00060 0.01131 0.0012 −0.32852 1.29759
VD3 0.96832 0.05989 0.00441 0.05738 0.0026 −0.18733 1.22193
MD1 0.98681 0.03956 0.00181 0.03443 0.08379 −0.30397 1.3897
MD2 0.98575 0.04110 0.00196 0.03717 0.09147 −0.2625 1.35038
MD3 0.98819 0.03758 0.00168 0.02683 0.0571 −0.69603 1.76755
Henderson HAD1 0.9588 0.06301 0.00397 0.09924 0.00133 1.08561
and Pabis HAD2 0.97673 0.04946 0.00245 0.05137 0.00237 1.05884
HAD3 0.97718 0.05229 0.00273 0.04101 0.00383 1.07991
VD1 0.94857 0.07912 0.00626 0.1502 0.00189 1.12677
VD2 0.96647 0.0581 0.00338 0.06751 0.00219 1.03235
VD3 0.94402 0.0851 0.00724 0.1014 0.00379 1.079
MD1 0.95613 0.07567 0.00573 0.1145 0.14272 1.14924
MD2 0.9574 0.07453 0.00555 0.1111 0.14808 1.1474
MD3 0.94229 0.08783 0.00771 0.1311 0.14029 1.15108
Two Term HAD1 0.9384 0.08624 0.00797 0.1834 0.00018 0.00018 0.5438 0
HAD2 0.9963 0.01939 0.00038 0.00715 0.00097 0.00097 1,297 −1296
HAD3 0.8588 0.1397 0.01812 0.2537 0.00626 0.00626 0 1.248
VD1 0.9286 0.09734 0.00948 0.2085 0.00227 0.0027 1.213 0
VD2 0.9947 0.02429 0.00059 0.01062 0.0007 0.0007 −245.4 246.3
VD3 0.9699 0.0674 0.00454 0.05452 1.981 1.981 683.7 −683.5
MD1 0.9946 0.02811 0.00079 0.01422 0.2806 0.2806 0.00002 −0.00002
MD2 0.9295 0.1011 0.01022 0.1839 0.1844 0.1844 1.249 0
MD3 0.9421 0.09365 0.00877 0.1316 0.1427 0.1427 1.159 0

Note: HAD1, HAD2, and HAD3: 60, 70, and 80°C hot air drying; VD1, VD2, and VD3: 60, 70, and 80°C vacuum drying; MD1, MD2, and MD3: 280,
420, and 560 W microwave drying. The parameters of the optimal models were given in bold type.

of the sample, and thus improved the rehydration (Wang, Zhang, &
Mujumdar, 2014).
3.5 | Nutrient composition
The effects of different drying methods on the nutrient contents
of acerola cherry powder are shown in Figure 4. The contents of
reducing sugar and total sugar in both hot air drying and vacuum
drying were lower than that of vacuum freeze-drying. Because of
the high temperature and long drying time of hot air drying, as well
as low temperature of vacuum drying and long drying time, the
Maillard reaction of acerola cherry was so serious that the sugar in
acerola cherry was lost. However, as vacuum freeze-drying is a kind
of low-temperature drying, the Maillard reaction was not serious.
Therefore, the saccharides were well preserved, and the total sugar
8 of 10 | SONG et al.

No antioxidants Reducing sugar

8000 Potassium sorbate Total sugar
a a 80
Total acid
Sodium sulfite
Polyphenols ab ab ab ab
Phytic acid b b 70 c

Total sugar and Total acid (mg/g)

b
Ascorbic Acid (mg/100g)

6000 ab
60
c c
a

Reducing sugar
50 b
4000 c
a 40
a a b
a
ab 30
b a
2000
20

10
0
HAD VD VFD 0
HAD VD VFD
F I G U R E 2 Effects of the four antioxidants on the AA content of
acerola cherry dried by different drying methods (two-way ANOVA F I G U R E 4 The reducing sugar, total sugar, and total acid content
followed by the Tukey's test; drying method F(2,30) = 1,062.103, of acerola cherry powder prepared by different drying methods.
p < .001; antioxidant F(4,30) = 19.556, p < .001; interaction F(8,30) HAD: hot air drying; VD: vacuum drying; VFD: vacuum freeze-
= 7.754, p < .001; n = 3 for each group). HAD: hot air drying; VD: drying. Analysis of variance followed by the Duncan's multiple
vacuum drying; VFD: vacuum freeze-drying. Values with different range test. Values with different letters at the different drying
letters at the different drying methods are significantly different methods are significantly different (p < 0.05)

Rehydration
Solubility 4 | CO N C LU S I O N
250 b
In this study, the effects of three drying methods (HAD, VD, MD) on
b
200 the drying characteristics and kinetics of acerola cherry were evalu-
ated. The MD method required less drying time than HAD and VD.
Rehydration %
Solubility %

150 a The moisture diffusion was accelerated with the increase in tem-
perature, which improved the drying speed and shortened the dry-
100 ing time. Acerola cherry powder obtained from VD and VFD was
b
a a significantly different from that of HAD in terms of AA content, and
50 phytic acid and tea polyphenols had a better protective effect on AA
than other antioxidants under three drying conditions. The rehydra-
0 tion and solubility of acerola cherry powder prepared by VFD were
HAD VD VFD
significantly different from that by HAD and VD. The reducing sugar
F I G U R E 3 Rehydration and solubility of acerola cherry powder and total sugar of acerola cherry powder were higher than that of
prepared by different drying methods. HAD: hot air drying; VD: other drying methods, and the acerola cherry powder obtained by
vacuum drying; VFD: vacuum freeze-drying. Analysis of variance VD had the highest total acid content. The results of this study pro-
followed by the Duncan's multiple range test. Values with different vide a theoretical basis for the drying technology of acerola cherry
letters at the different drying methods are significantly different
and the development of dried products of acerola cherry.
(p < 0.05)

content was high (Zhou et al., 2014). The total acid content of ace-
rola cherry powder dried by vacuum freeze-drying and hot air dry-
ing was significantly lower than that of vacuum drying, indicating
that vacuum drying was beneficial to the preservation of acids in
acerola cherry powder. Similar results had been reported in jujube
powder (Zhou et al., 2014). In addition, as an acid, the loss of ascorbic
acid also affected the total acid content of acerola cherry powder.
Compared with that dried by hot air drying, the acerola cherry pow-
der dried by vacuum drying and vacuum freeze-drying has higher
ascorbic acid, so that the total acid content was also higher.
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
The study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China (No. 31960678) and the Natural Science Foundation of
Hainan Province (ZDYF2019077).
C O N FL I C T O F I N T E R E S T
The authors have declared no conflicts of interest for this article.
AU T H O R C O N T R I B U T I O N S
Bei Song, Haisheng Tan, and Jinsong Yang contributed to the concep-
tion of this research; Bei Song performed the experiments; Bei Song
and Haisheng Tan made important contributions to the analysis and
SONG et al. | 9 of 10

preparation of the manuscript; Bei Song conducted the data analysis Agricultural and Biological Engineering, 12(3), 187–193. https://doi.
org/10.25165​/j.ijabe.20191​203.4820
and wrote the manuscript; Bei Song, Haisheng Tan, and Jinsong Yang
Liu, W., Chen, W., Yu, J., Liu, M., Hu, S., & Lu, F. (2019). Microwave dry-
helped perform the analysis with constructive discussions. ing characteristics and kinetic model of carrot. Chinese Science and
Technology of Food Industry, 40(9), 68–72.
ORCID Liu, Y., Zhang, C., Li, T., Cong, T., Xu, L., & Gong, H. (2020). Effect of
Bei Song https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1628-3100 different drying methods on the quality of cherry powder. Food
Research and Development, 41(7), 26–30.
Haisheng Tan https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4088-3915
Mujumdar, A. S. (1987). Handbook of industrial drying. New York, NY:
Jinsong Yang https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8789-5008 Marcel Dekker.
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