Rehydration Capacity of Chilean Papaya (Vasconcellea pubescens): Effect of Process Temperature on Kinetic Parameters and Functional Properties

Slabs of Chilean papaya hot air-dried at 60 °C were rehydrated at 20, 40, 60, and 80 °C to study the influence of process temperature on mass transfer kinetics during rehydration. Diffusive and empirical models were selected to simulate the experimental rehydration curves. All models parameters showed dependence with temperature, thus activation energy could be estimated according to an Arrhenius-type equation. Among the applied models, Weibull provided the best fit for each rehydration curve based on the statistical tests RMSE, SSE, and chi-square. According to these results, this model could be used to estimate the rehydration time of Chilean papaya. In addition, rehydration ratio and water-holding capacity were analyzed. Both indices showed a decrease with increasing rehydration temperature indicating modification of the papaya cell structure due to thermal treatment which resulted in a reduction of the rehydration ability, in particular at high rehydration temperatures.