Development of spray drying technique for papaya (Carica papaya) fruit juice powder

Post-harvest losses of Carica papaya are considerably high throughout the supply chain due to variety of reasons. Spray drying is one of the potential preservation technologies to address this issue. Therefore, this research was conducted to identify the most acceptable carrier agent for papaya spray drying. The final quality of the product was tested with Maltodextrin and Glucose syrup with three different concentrations and at three different temperatures. Processing temperatures of 60°C, 80°C, and 100°C were employed, with three concentrations (7.4%, 11.5%, and 15.3%) of carrier agents. The results revealed that temperature and carrier agent concentration had no effect on ascorbic acid, solubility, and pH (P>0.05). But the titratable acidity, moisture content and rehydration duration of dried powder differed. With increasing temperature, ascorbic acid and moisture content decreased while the pH of the solution increased with temperature and concentration.

Changes in temperature have significantly effect on rehydration time. Better rehydration times were observed for maltodextrin and glucose syrup concentrations of 11.5% and 7.4%, respectively. There were two optimum treatment combinations: 11.5% maltodextrin at 80°C and 7.4% glucose syrup at 60°C.