Study on Drying of Seaweeds and Importance of Glass Transition and Stabilization

In this study, the thermal transition of seaweed Saccharina latissima (raw and blanched) during drying and quality stabilization was considered in view of understanding physico-chemical changes, color changes, sorption changes and thermal property changes with respect to drying kinetics. The variations in the effective moisture diffusivity coefficient with shrinkage changes and temperature lie between 1.0 and 5.0 × 10−10 m2 s−1 (raw) and 0.5 and 3.6 × 10−10 m2 s−1 (blanched), respectively. Noticeable physical and chemical changes were observed during longer drying times, especially in the case of blanched seaweeds. At the temperature of 38.0 °C, a more yellow-colored product was obtained from raw form input materials. The blanched seaweeds accumulated moisture in a linear manner with an increase in the relative humidity of the drying air in the range of 20.0~80.0%, which resulted in high level of hysteresis between the sorption and desorption behavior. Shrinkage changes during the drying of blanched and raw samples were also calculated. The thermal stabilization of raw and blanched forms started at different initial moisture contents showed changed glass transition phenomena during a wide range of temperature sand one melting endotherm between 141.9 and 167.9 °C. Some glass transitions were driven by the presence of water-soluble contents in the material. The dried seaweeds at low temperatures showed a partial glassy state and an amorphous/crystalline state. This study evaluated the effects of process parameters on the properties of dried product.