Resumen

CORZO, Otoniel  y  BRACHO, Nelson. Application of Normalized Weibull Model in the Osmotic Dehydration of Sardine Sheets. Rev. Cient. (Maracaibo) [online]. 2009, vol.19, n.4, pp.400-407. ISSN 0798-2259.

Knowledge of kinetics of osmotic dehydration of a food and factors that cause effects are aspects import for the appropriate design of process. In this work the application of normalized Weibull model was investigated for describing the osmotic dehydration (OD) of sardine finite sheets and determining the effective diffusion coefficient for water. The OD was carried out during 4 hours using brine at different concentrations (0.15-0.27 g NaCl/g) and temperatures (30-38°C). During process the water content of shhets was measured and these values were fitted to normalized Weibull model. The high values of regression coefficients (R² > 0.99), high significance (α < 0.001) of diffusion coefficient (D), parameter β, and low values of chi-square indicated the acceptability of Weibull model for describing the process and determining the effective diffusion coefficient D_e for water. The values of D ranged from 1.01 x 10^-11 m²/s to 4.30 x 10^-11 m²/s.

Palabras clave : Osmotic dehydration; Weibull model; diffusion coefficient; simulation; Fick’s law; sardine.