Improving drying characteristics and quality attributes of edible bird’s nest (EBN) processed under intermittent IR-UVC assisted drying
Publication Date
July 24, 2017
Creator
Abstract
The quality of Malaysian edible bird’s nest (EBN) is still regarded inferior due to issues related to nitrite content. In August 2011, the Chinese government imposed a ban on EBN products imported from Malaysia, due to the high level of detectable nitrite (NO2-). This nitrite contamination issue has made a great impact to the edible bird’s industry whereby many EBN farmers, traders and exporters are severely affected. In 2012, the China-Malaysia negotiations agreed on the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on every individual package of Malaysian EBN and set the allowable nitrite limit to be less than 30 ppm, in order to allow exportation of Malaysian EBN to China.
The processing methods in EBN industry still remain crude and lack of any form of technology advancement. The purpose of this study was to investigate infrared (IR) coupled with ultraviolet C (UVC) assisted intermittent drying as a mean of EBN processing in order to preserve its nutraceutical properties, ensure nitrite content less than 30 ppm and enhance the commercial value of the dried EBN products. In the present study, EBN were dried by IR assisted drying at low temperature (25°C, 26.7% RH and intermittency =1.00), UVC assisted drying at low temperature (25°C, 26.7% RH and intermittency=1.00) and IR-UVC assisted drying (25°C-40°C, 16.5%-26.7% RH and intermittency=0.20-1.00), respectively. Both engineering properties (drying kinetics, effective moisture diffusivity and effective thermal diffusivity) and quality properties (colour, nitrite content, moisture reabsorption ability, shrinkage, sialic acid retention, antioxidant retention and storage stability) of all dried products were assessed and evaluated. The comparisons were made against samples from fan assisted drying and hot air drying.
The results revealed that intermittent infrared (IR) coupled with ultraviolet C (UVC) assisted drying at temperature of 40°C (IR-UVC40) with intermittency,
Item Type
ethesis
Thesis Type
PhD
Supervisors
Subjects (LC)
Associated Schools / Departments
Department of Chemical and Environmental Engineering (MY)
eprints ID
41680
UoN Repository URI
Except where otherwise noted, this item's license is described as
File(s)![Thumbnail Image]()
Name
Thesis - Improving Drying Characteristics and Quality Attributes of EBN Processed under Intermittent IR-UVC Drying (Gan Shu Hui UNIMKL-014194).pdf
Type
Full-text
Description
Examined
Size
4.29 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
e3bff04ed2cd6f58cd5ec181fff545e4