N. M. C. Alves

Característica higroscópica e termodinâmica do coentro desidratado

The determination of adsorption isotherms of moisture is an essential factor in the projects and studies of systems for drying, processing, storage, packaging and shelf-time prediction of food products. The adsorption isotherms are obtained by means of variation of moisture content in terms of equilibrium water activity at a constant temperature, and its prediction is performed by the application of mathematical models to experimental data. Through the adsorption isotherms it can be calculated some thermodynamic properties such as isosteric heat of adsorption, which is used in the analysis, development of case study of food and moisture-solid interactions. Thus, this work aimed to study the behavior of adsorption isotherms of leaves and stems of dehydrate coriander, evaluate the model that represents the behavior of the curves and determine the isosteric heat of adsorption. The experimental data were fitted by nonlinear regression, the GAB, Oswin, Smith, BET, Halsey and Peleg models had been used. The models which best represented the behavior of the adsorption curves of the leaf and stem were from Smith and Peleg. The isosteric heat of adsorption obtained from dried leaf is larger than the stem.

Viabilidade e micoflora de sementes de amendoim irradiadas com cobalto (60Co)

The effect of different doses of the gamma irradiation was studied on germination and percentage of fungal infection in peanut seeds cultivar BR1. Initially the seeds were evaluated for the mycoflora using the method of humidified filter paper, the germination in paper substratum germitest and determination of the moisture content in oven at 105 ± 2 oC. Later on the seeds were submitted to irradiation with a source of 60Co, type gammacell, where the effect was studied of 8 doses of irradiation in the mycoflora and germination of the seeds conditioned in PET packing and polyethylene tressed during 60 days of storage, without control of temperature and relative humidity of the air. The studied factors (doses in kGy, packing and time of storage) were analyzed in a completely randomized design arranged in factorial. Scheme-based on the results, it was observed that gamma irradiation affected negatively the germination of the peanut seeds, and that doses above 3.0 kGy completely undermine the germination of seeds. The radiation eliminated the fungus Aspergillus niger under the dose of 1.5 kGy and the Penicillium under the dose of 2.5 kGy.