Estudo experimental da fluidodinâmica de uma mistura de resíduo de acerola e soja em leito de jorro

Abstract

West Indian cherry (Malpighia emarginata) is rich in vitamin C and other bioactive compounds. Brazil is one of the three largest producers of fruit in the world, being one of the greatest producer of agricultural residues. Drying is a method to allow the reuse of these residues. The residue of West Indian cherry has a low flowability in the spouted bed due to the low density of biomass and high moisture, thus it could be used soybean as an auxiliary material to keep the fluid dynamic stability and maintain the food characteristics of the final product. As this process involves a mixture of solids of different sizes, shapes and densities, it is subjected to particle segregation phenomena. In order to quantify the segregation, the Index of Mixture was defined as the ratio between the final local concentration and the initial global concentration of west Indian cherry. During the drying, there is a change in the contents of the bioactive compounds due to the influence of temperature and air flow rate. The present paper studied the fluid dynamic of the mixture of West Indian cherry residue and soybean in a spouted bed operating with different mass fraction of biomass in different heights of static bed. It was analyzed the mixture segregation and from the achieved results was possible to quantify the effect of the west Indian cherry concentration on degree of mixing and to conclude that there is a concentration of West Indian cherry residue on the top of the bed for all the static bed heights and mass fractions studied. It were also quantified the contents of phenolics, flavonoids, ascorbic acid, as well as moisture in different drying times and it was possible to verify the equilibrium moisture as well as an increase on the bioactive compounds contents quantified after drying.