Thermal Degradation Kinetics of Pigments and Visual Color in Watermelon Juice

Thermal degradation of total carotenoids, lycopene and visual colour of watermelon juice was studied at 50–90°C up to 5 h. Total carotenoids content in fresh watermelon juice was reduced from 4.568 to 0.929 mg/100 g, lycopene from 4.403 to 0.82 mg/100 g and Hunter ‘a × b’ value from 251.66 to 89.59 when heated at 90°C for 5 h. First order model explained the degradation behaviour of total carotenoids, lycopene and Hunter ‘a × b’ value evident from correlation coefficient (R2) higher than 0.93. The dependence of degradation rate constant of total carotenoids, lycopene and Hunter ‘a × b’ value on temperature was adequately explained by Arrhenius equation. The activation energies for total carotenoids, lycopene and Hunter ‘a × b’ value were 24.19, 26.46, and 55.47 kJ/mol, respectively. Total carotenoids and lycopene were correlated with Hunter ‘a × b’ value with R2 > 0.99 indicating that visual colour may be used to predict lycopene and total carotenoids contents in watermelon juice.