คำศัพท์ทางเคมีFruits play an important role in human nutrition, but due to their high perishable nature they cannot be
stored for longer period. As drying is the ancient method of
preservation, therefore, solar tunnel drying is done to
evaluate the effect of drying on physico-chemical and
antioxidant activity of mango, banana and papaya fruits.
Fruits viz. mango and papaya were cut into slices while
banana were made into rings (thickness of 1 ± 0.1 cm) and
kept at a temperature of 60 ± 2 C for 6 h under solar
tunnel drier. During drying the removal of moisture content
increased the physico-chemical properties viz. total soluble
solids, acidity, reducing and total sugars of all the fruits.
The antioxidant compounds, total phenols and total
carotenoids were increased while heat sensitive vit-C
decreased. However, the antioxidant activity, after drying,
was increased in mango from 68.6 to 86.3 %, in papaya
from 64.1 to 80.4 % and in banana from 59.5 to 73.2 %,
respectively. Thus, solar tunnel drying is an inexpensive
method of preserving the fruits efficiently and effectively
for longer period of time.