Designed Experiments for Reducing Antinutritive Agents in Soybean by Microwave Energy

To increase biological benefit and ease of digestion and decrease antinutrient compounds in legumes, traditional procedures, heating or blanching, are generally used. The use of microwave energy is more efficient than the traditional heating treatment. The characteristic feature of microwave heating is that it ensures homogeneous operation in the whole volume of substance, great penetrating depth, and selective absorption. The effect of microwave energy for reducing enzyme activity in whole soybeans has been investigated. This application has appeared in the literature; however, the optimal physical parameters were not researched. All of the experiments were performed with Labotron 500 vacuumable microwave equipment. The experiments investigated here were carefully designed to find the optimum conditions for the treatment. The paper gives the results and a description of the statistical methods with which the evaluation was more effective and informative even though fewer measurements were required. These laboratory-scale results are easily extendible to factory-scale as well.