Tissues of apple, carrot and banana were pre-treated by pulsed electric field (PEF) and
subsequently osmotically dehydrated in an agitated flask at ambient temperature using a 65%
sucrose solution as osmotic medium. The effect of stirring intensity was investigated through water
loss (WL) and solid gain (SG). Changes in product color were also considered to analyze the impact
of the treatment. The impeller’s Reynolds number was used to quantify the agitation. The Reynolds
number remained inferior to 300 thus displaying laminar flow regime. Water loss (WL) and solid
gain (SG) increase with the increase of Reynolds number. Mass transfer in osmotic dehydration
of all three test particles has been studied on the basis of a two-exponential kinetic model. Then,
mass transfer coefficients were related to the agitation intensity. This paper shows that the proposed
empirical model is able to describe mass transfer phenomena in osmotic dehydration of these tissues.
It is also shown that a higher agitation intensity improves both the kinetics of water loss
and solid gain.