ABSTRACT

The atemoya is attracting increasing interest due to its aroma, flavor and market value. But like most fruits is quite perishable, making necessary the application of preservation methods, such as spray drying, which prolongs the shelf life, reduces the water activity and gets as final product the food powder. The objective this work was to driyng the formulation produces with 50% atemoya pulp + 50% distilled water, added 25% maltodextrin, in the spray dryer with inlet air temperature of 180 ° C, the feeding flow rate of 0.5 L h-1, air pressure of 30 kgf cm-2 and diameter nozzle of 1.2 mm. As the final product were obtained two powder samples, collected in the drying chamber and another in the cyclone, these were characterized physic, physico-chemically and morphologically. The experimental data on physico-chemical analyzes were analyzed by completely randomized design. Evaluating the results shows that the color of the sample powder collected in the drying chamber was darker than that of the cyclone; samples atemoya powder collected in the drying chamber had a higher moisture content, pH, ascorbic acid, ash, sugars and proteins in relation to the powder samples collected in the cyclone and lower water activity, absolute density and apparent, moreover, the powder of the drying chamber is more soluble, has a higher porosity and large particles than that of the cyclone and both sticky aggregates formed.

Index terms
Annona cherimola Mill. X Annona squamosaL.,; spray drying; physico-chemical properties and morphology