Accepted Article

The effect of different methods of drying of mango assisted by a pulsed electric field on
chemical and physical properties

Alica Lammerskitten1, Ivan Shorstkii2, Oleksii Parniakov1*, Viacheslav Mykhailyk3, Stefan

Toepfl1, Katarzyna Rybak4, Magdalena Dadan4, Malgorzata Nowacka4 and Artur Wiktor4

1Elea Vertriebs- und Vermarktungsgesellschaft mbH, Prof. von Klitzing Str. 9, 49610
Quakenbrück, Germany
2 Department of Technological Equipment and life-support systems, Kuban State University of
Technology, Moskovskaya 2, 350072, Krasnodar, Russia; i-shorstky@mail.ru
3Institute of Engineering Thermal Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 2a, Marii
Kapnist Str., Kyiv, Ukraine
4Department of Food Engineering and Process Management, Faculty of Food Sciences, Warsaw
University of Life Sciences, Nowoursynowska 159c, Warsaw, Poland

Contact information about Corresponding Author:

Dr. Oleksii Parniakov
Elea Vertriebs- und Vermarktungsgesellschaft mbH, Prof. von Klitzing Str. 9, 49610
Quakenbrück, Germany
e-mail address: o.parniakov@elea-technology.com

This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been
through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process, which may lead to
differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as doi:
10.1111/jfpp.14973
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 Abstract
Accepted Article
This study presents the impact of pulsed electric fields (PEF) on the selected properties of mango
dried with hot air and vacuum techniques. PEF pretreatment has been performed at 1 and 3 kJ/kg
followed by drying. The results showed that PEF pre-treated dried sample exhibited lower
rehydration capacity for both convection or vacuum drying by up to 16 and 21%, respectively.
Moreover, the retention of phenolic compounds in the case of PEF pre-treated material was higher
than for untreated by up to 70% in comparison to fresh material. In the case of carotenoids
retention PEF pre-treatment yielded the maximum values for 1 kJ/kg and minimum for 3 kJ/kg for
all drying methods. The antioxidant capacity of the dried mango samples declined after high
energy PEF treatment. These indicate that optimization of the PEF pre-treatment is needed to
avoid “overtreatment” of the product followed by the degradation of the bioactive compounds.
Practical application
Despite drying is one of the most popular food preservation and processing method it can lead to
significant loss of quality of final product. Therefore, food researchers look for the new methods
to improve drying process and properties of dried food. Pulsed electric filed technology belongs to
the one of the most promising emerging methods capable to improve product quality after drying.
This study has shown that PEF assisted drying results in better retention of dried mango.

Key words: electroporation; drying; PEF; pulsed electric field; mango, bioactive compunds.

1. Introduction
Mango fruit (Mangifera indica L.) belongs to the Anacardiaceae family (Barreto et al., 2008). The
mango has a special economic position, due to their high nutritional value and their rising
consumer demand in the recent years. It is a great source of carbohydrates, vitamin A, B1, B3, B5,
B6 and C as well as β-carotene(Braga et al., 2019). However, of particular importance are the high
contents of polyphenols, including mangiferin, catechins, anthocyanins and many other, protecting
the cells for free radical damage (Izli et al., 2017). Globally, the mango production is around 50.65
million tons at 2017 and it has increased by around 25 % in the last five years (Statista, 2019). Due
to the seasonal availability and short shelf life of mango, the drying is a common method, to
prevent deteriorating processes and to provide mango all year round (Mitra, 2016; Izli et al.,
2017). By means of removing the moisture from plant material, microbial spoilage and
deteriorating processes can be greatly minimized (Ratti, 2008). For the drying of mango tissue,

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 there are numerous suitable drying techniques, i.e. hot-air-drying and vacuum drying. Each of
Accepted Article
them shows a different impact on final product quality and is characterized by their own benefits
and restrictions. Hot air drying is the most frequently used technique in food industry. However, it
is accompanied by long drying times at high drying temperatures (Maskan, 2001). Overheating of
the product can cause darkening in color, loss in flavor and nutritional value, shrinkage and a
decrease in rehydration ability (Giri and Prasad, 2007). The vacuum drying process provides
drying at lower temperatures and in an oxygen-deficient drying environment. Both allow a more
“product-friendly” drying, than atmospheric drying methods do (Ratti, 2008). However, the heat
required for this process, cannot easily be transferred under vacuum. Therefore, long drying times
result in high operating costs. For this reason, this process is limited in industry to heat-sensitive
and easily oxidized food-products (Yang et al., 2010). Accordingly, what all drying processes
have in common is, that the drying process can affect physical and chemical properties of the
product – and not always in the desirable way. The willing to keep the quality levels high – similar
to that one of raw material – novel technologies such as pulsed electric field (PEF) processing are
facing growing interest in the recent times amongst scientists and industry (Barba et al., 2020).
PEF technology is based on applying short electrical pulses of high voltage to a product, placed
between two electrodes. The polarization of the cell membrane leads to permeabilization and
disruption of cellular tissue (Toepfl et al., 2014). Thereby mass and heat transfer processes can be
improved without undesirable changes in food quality (Barbosa-Cánovas and Altunakar, 2006).
Therefore, PEF technology opens totally new horizons for the existing applications. Recently, in
the limited extend, the impact of PEF on the final product quality of dried plant material was
discussed for the different drying techniques. For example, Parniakov et al. (2016)(Parniakov et
al., 2016) studied the impact of PEF pre-treatment on the vacuum freeze-drying process of apple
tissue. They demonstrated that a PEF pre-treatment can preserve the macro-shape and prevents
shrinkage. Concerning the vitamin C content of PEF-pretreated material, Ade-Omowaye et al.
(2001)(Ade-Omowaye et al., 2001) and Lamanauskas et al. (2015)(Lamanauskas et al., 2015)
stated, that PEF-pretreated dried material showed the same vitamin C content than intact material
does. In the case of PEF treated and vacuum dried blueberries, (Yu et al., 2017) noticed good
preservation of anthocyanin, total phenolic, vitamin C and antioxidant activity compared to
untreated sample. Moreover, Lammerskitten et al. (2019) (Lammerskitten et al., 2019) observed
an increase in total phenolic content by up to 47 % for PEF treated apple tissue compared to
untreated ones, however, the antioxidant activity after PEF treatment caused decrease by up to

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 60 % in comparison to untreated samples. As aforementioned, in the literature there are some
Accepted Article
articles which are related to studies about drying kinetics influenced by PEF. However, the effect
of PEF for different types of drying and their comparison in relation to quality attributes has not
been deeply studied yet. Therefore, the objective of this study is the comparison of convective
drying and vacuum drying methods in terms of quality attributes (total phenolic compounds, total
flavonoid content, total carotenoid content, antioxidant activity, ascorbic acid and rehydration
capacity) of final dried untreated and PEF treated mango tissue.

2. Material and Methods

2.1. Raw Material

Commercial mango (origin Peru) were purchased from a local market (Warsaw, Poland). The
mango was stored at 4 °C for a few days. Before the experiment fruits were washed and manually
cut in the cubes of 10x10x10 ± 1 mm (LxWxH) directly before drying. The water content in the
raw, pre-treated and dried mangoes was measured by drying of the samples at 70 °C until constant
mass according to AOAC 920.15. Initial water content was equaled to 81±1 %.

2.2. Pulsed Electric Field Treatment

PEF treatment was carried out using a pilot scale batch PEF unit (PEF PilotTM) (Elea GmbH,
Germany). The system provided voltage up to 30 kV and monopolar-, exponential decay pulses
with pulse duration of 40 s. The interval between the pulses was set at 0.5 s (2 Hz). The distance
between the electrodes (made of stainless steel) was 280 mm (Fig 1). The samples (whole mango)
were weighed and placed inside the treatment chamber between two parallel electrodes with the
surface of 0.042 m2. Tap water ( =222 S/cm and T= 22.1 °C) was added as a conductive
medium until the samples were completely covered. The total mass of the product, in the treatment
chamber, was 250±5 g (that corresponds to weight of 1 mango) and the product water ratio was
1:24, respectively. By taking the total mass of the cell content into account the required specific
energy intake (kJ/kg) was adjusted by adapting the number of pulses. The trials were done by
applying specific energies of 1 kJ/kg and 3 kJ/kg (PEF1 and PEF2, respectively) and a field
strength of 1.07 kV/cm. The protocols of PEF pre-treatment have been selected based on the
determination of cell disintegration index, described below, to see the effect of low and high

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 energy input treatment. The specific energy intake Wt (kJ/kg) and electric field strength E (kV/cm)
Accepted Article
were calculated according to the following equations (1) (2).
𝑈2𝐶 𝑛 (1)
𝑊𝑡 =
2𝑚

𝑈 (2)
𝐸=
𝑑
where n is the number of pulses (1-11); m is the mass of the treated samples (kg); U is the voltage
(kV) and d is the distance between electrodes (cm); C is the capacitance (1 μF).
The chosen protocol of PEF pre-treatment allowed to achieve permeabilization of the plant tissue
without any significant temperature elevation (ΔT ≤ 5 °C).
The degree of cell permeabilization of red beet and pineapple tissue was evaluated using the
electrical conductivity disintegration index, Zp. It was calculated according to the following
Eq. (3) (Lebovka et al., 2002):

𝑍𝑝 = ( 𝜎 – 𝜎𝑖
𝜎𝑑 ― 𝜎𝑖 ) (3) where
σ is the
measured electrical conductivity and subscripts i and d refer to the conductivities of the intact and
completely damaged tissue, respectively. All values of σ were measured at the same temperature,
T = 20 °C and by means of “PEFControl” (Elea Vertriebs- und Vermarktungsgesellschaft mbH,
Germany). The value of σd was estimated as the maximum attainable level of σ for the given
mode of treatment and was attained using high level of PEF intensity (Wt = 20 kJ/kg; E = 1.07
kV/cm).
The Zp of PEF treated samples was equal to 0.38 and 0.75 for 1 and 3 kJ/kg, respectively.

2.3. Drying

2.3.1. Convective drying

The convective drying was conducted in a laboratory dryer (Department of Food Engineering and
Process Management, WULS-SGGW, Poland) at the temperature of 70°C and parallel air flow at
an air velocity equal 2 m/s. The material was placed on perforated trays in a single layer with a

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 sieve load of 2.8 kg/m2. Drying was stopped when material reached constant mass and was
Accepted Article
performed in two separate repetitions for each variant of the experiment.

2.3.2. Vacuum drying

The vacuum drying was performed using laboratory dryer (SPT-200, Conbest, Cracow) described
before in (Piotrowski et al., 2007). Drying was carried out at pressure of 4 kPa and at the
temperature of 70°C and the sieve load of 2.8 kg/m2. The material was placed on trays in a single
layer when the dryer was heated up to set temperature. Process was constituted until material
reached constant mass and it was carried out in a duplicate for each variant of the experiment.

2.4. Chemical properties

Mango extract preparation

To analyze bioactive compounds the mango extract was prepared using 20 mL of 80% (v/v)
aqueous ethanol solution and 2 g of dried material. Material was homogenized and heat until
boiling. After filtration into a volumetric flask, extract was filled with ethanol solution to 50 mL.
The obtained extracts in this procedure were used for the total phenolic content, total flavonoid
content and antioxidant capacity determination.

2.4.1. Total phenolic content (TPC)

To evaluate TPC of mango the Folin-Ciocalteu method was used. Measurement was conducted
according the procedure describe by (Nowacka et al., 2019). Briefly, 0.18 mL previous prepared
extract was mixed with 0.3 mL Folin-Ciocalteu's reagent and 4.92 mL of distilled water. After 3
min 0.6 mL of sodium carbonate was added, mixed and incubated in darkness for 1 h. The TPC
was measured at 750 nm against a blank sample (without extract) using spectrophotometer and
expressed in mg of chlorogenic acid equivalents in 100 g of dry matter (mg CAE/100 g d.m.). The
analysis were performed in a triplicate for each material.

2.4.2. Total flavonoid content (TFC)

TFC was measured with spectrometric method based on reaction between flavonoid compounds
with aluminium chloride. To the glass tube was added 2mL extract form mango and 2 mL of 2%
aluminium chloride solution (80% ethanolic solution). After stirring the samples was stored in the
darkness for 10 minutes (Nowacka et al., 2018a). The absorbance was measured at 430 nm against
80% ethanolic solution using spectrophotometer (Thermo Spectronic Helios Gamma, Thermo

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 Fischer Scientific, USA) and the results was expressed in mg of quercetin equivalent in 1 g of dry
Accepted Article
matter (mg QE/g d.m.). The analysis were performed in a triplicate for each material.
2.4.3. Total carotenoid content (TCC)
TCC was determined using a spectrophotometric method with Carrez I and II solutions (Wiktor et
al., 2015). The extraction of the precipitate was conducted using acetone and petroleum ether and
the absorbance at 450 nm was measured. The TCC was express in mg/100 g d.m. The analysis
were performed in a triplicate for each material.

2.4.4. Ascorbic acid content

The L-ascorbic acid content in mango was measured using Ultra-performance Liquid
Chromatography (UPLC) with photodiode array (PDA) detection system and EmpowerTM
software (Waters Corporation, USA) according the methods describe by (Nowacka et al., 2019).
The procedure was performed under reduced light. 5 g of fresh mango or 1 g of dried material was
extracted with 25 mL of solution (3% MPA – 8% acetic acid –1 mM EDTA) by mixing and
centrifuged with a velocity of 6000 rpm for 10 min. The supernatant was filtered with 0.22 μL
PTFE filters (Milipore, USA) and 2 μL injected on a Acquity HSS T3 analytical column with a
flow rate of 250 μL/min an isocratic mobile phase consisting of aqueous 0.1% (v/v) formic acid.
After the PDA detection with wavelength of 245 nm the L-ascorbic acid in samples was
determined by comparison with the retention time and expressed in mg/100g d.m. The analysis
were performed in a triplicate for each material.

2.4.5. Antioxidant capacity

The antioxidant capacity was evaluated using ABTS and DPPH free radicals. The research
methods were detailed described in earlier publication (Nowacka et al., 2018a,b). Antioxidant
capacity was expressed as EC50 which is the concentration of extract required to reduce a half of
free radicals (mg d.m./ml). The analysis were performed in a triplicate for each material.

2.5. Physical properties

2.5.1. Rehydration rate

Rehydration was carried out at 20 °C. The kinetics of the process were analysed in a range of 0–
1 h. Dried material was immersed in distilled water for 5, 15, 30 and 60 min. After the certain
period of time the samples were separated from water with the sieve, blotted with a blotting paper

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 and weighed. Rehydration experiments were repeated twice for each rehydration time and for each
Accepted Article
dried material and the average moisture content, which was expressed as the dimensionless
moisture (Eq. 3), was used every time for drawing the rehydration curves.

𝑋𝑡 (4)
𝑅𝐶 =
𝑋0

where Xt is moisture of rehydrated apple at time t (kg H2O/kg db), and X0 is initial moisture of
fresh sample (kg H2O/kg db).
The soluble solid loss was measured by mass method. In rehydrated samples was measured dry
matter content. The soluble solid loss was measured using following equation:

𝑚𝑡 ∙ 𝑑𝑚𝑡 (5)
𝑆𝑆𝐿 =
𝑚𝑑 ∙ 𝑑𝑚𝑑

where mt– material weight after rehydration time t (g). dmt – dry matter content of sample after
rehydration time t (%). md – dried material weight before rehydration (g). dmd – dry matter
content of dried sample before rehydration (%).

2.5.2. Colour measurements

The colour of the samples was measured in the reflectance by KonicaMinolta CM-5 (Osaka,
Japan) chromameter. The colour was expressed by using CIE L*a*b* scale (L* is the lightness, a*
is the redness–greenness and b* is the yellowness–blueness parameter of colour measurement).
The CIE Standard Illuminate D65, di:8° (diffuse illumination/8° viewing angle), CIE: 2° Standard
Observer and the 8 mm measuring area was used. On the basis of obtained colour coordinates, the
total colour difference (ΔE) was calculated according to the following equation:
(6)
E  L *2  a *2  b *2
where ΔL*, Δa*, Δb* are the differences between L*, a* and b* measured for untreated and PEF
treated dried material.
The measurements were done in 6 repetitions.

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 2.6. Statistical analysis
Accepted Article
The ANOVA procedure at α=0.05 and the Tukey test was applied to assess significant differences
between investigated samples. Selected properties of mango tissue were also subjected to
MANOVA in order to determine the size of effect of drying method or pre-treatment presence.
The size of effect was expressed as partial η2. The statistical analysis was done with STATISTICA
13 (Statsoft, USA) and Excel (Microsofr, USA) software.

Results and discussions

Chemical properties of dried mango
The final dry mater content of all investigated samples was similar and it was equal to 96.2, 94.4,
94.6 % for air dried untreated, PEF1 and PEF2 treated samples, respectively. In the case of vacuum
dried material final dry mater content showed similar tendency and was equal to 96.2, 93.4 and
93.9% for untreated, PEF1 and PEF2 treated samples.
During evaporation process, moisture carries with it the volatile compounds of the product. This
causes the loss of taste and aroma in dried fruits. The final content of these compounds depends on
the product temperature change during the drying process, as well as on the vapor pressure of the
volatile components at a given temperature. Of great importance is the solubility of volatile
components in water and other substances of the dried material. In previous studies, it was
reported that a PEF pre-treatment can change the microstructure and increase retention of the
valuable compounds in the dried product (Yu et al., 2017; Lammerskitten et al., 2019; Tylewicz et
al., 2019).
Table 1 presents different bioactive properties and compounds concentration, i.e. the total
phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), total carotenoid content (TCC), ascorbic
acid and antioxidant capacity (ABTS, DPPH) in the untreated and PEF treated mango dried with
different techniques.
It has been shown that the TPC of mango fruits dried with different pre-treatment and
drying methods varied significantly (p < 0.05) ranging from 120.7 to 297.6 mg CAE/100 g d.m.
Fresh mango characterized by TPC equal to 297.6±14.7 mg CAE /100 g d.m. Drying resulted in
decrease of TPC to 120.7±4.5 mg CAE /100 g d.m. for CD and 165.2±2.0 mg CAE /100 g d.m. for
VD (Table 1). Positive effect of PEF pre-treatment on retention of TPC in mango was observed
for each drying method. For the low energy PEF treatment (PEF1), the highest content of TPC
after drying was observed vacuum-dried samples and was equal to 184.2±5.2 mg CAE /100 g d.m.

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 This effect of PEF pre-treatment on retention of TPC can be linked to the gentle drying due to the
Accepted Article
low thermal impact on mango tissue during VD (Ciurzynska et al., 2013). In other words, due to
electroporation water evaporation proceded faster in the case of PEF treated material which could
decrease the temperature of material during drying. Lower temperature of PEF pre-treated material
during drying in comparison to untreated samples was reported previously by (Parniakov et al.,
2016) for vacuum freeze-drying of apple tissue. In the case of CD samples, the TPC was 163.8 and
206.2 CAE/100 g d.m. for PEF1 and PEF2 respectively. This resulted in up to 23.18 % higher
content of total phenolic compounds compared to untreated samples (U). Another explanation of
higher retention of TPC in PEF treated samples might be connected to a higher extraction
efficiency caused by electroporation of cell membrane facilitating solvent penetration and
consequently high extraction of phenolic compounds (Wiktor et al., 2015). The obtained results
showed higher values of TPC of mango samples than reported by several researchers which might
be attributed differences in fruit maturity or horticultural practices (Shofian et al., 2011; Kumar
and Sagar, 2014; Sogi et al., 2015). MANOVA procedure demonstrated that drying method,
presence of pre-treatment and the interaction between these parameters had significant (p<0.05)
effect on variability of TPC. However, the highest value of η2 was found out for presence of pre-
treatment (η2=0.959) which indicates the bigger influence of pre-treatment than drying method
itself.
Total flavonoids are important bioactive compounds that have the ability to reduce a free
radical formation and to scavenge free radicals (Nyangena et al. 2019). PEF intensities and drying
methods significantly (p < 0.05) affected the flavonoid content (TFC) of mango samples (Table 1).
However, in this case the interaction between drying method and presence of pre-treatment
demonstrated the biggest effect on TFC, with η2 of 0.944. For comparison, drying method and pre-
treatment presence alone had η2 equal to 0.914 and 0.891, respectively. The TFC of CD mango
treated with PEF1 and PEF2 decreased by approx. 10 and 20 % in comparison with untreated
samples (U) with 3.38 mg QE/g d.m., respectively.
However, sample treated with PEF1 and vacuum dried led to a 30% decrease in TFC of mango
samples compared to untreated ones. Interesting that by increasing of PEF intensity to 3 kJ/kg
(PEF2) resulted in increase of TFC in a VD mango samples by 33.33 % due to synergetic effect of
VD and high PEF intensity. It is worth emphasizing, that dried mango samples exhibited higher
concentration of TFC than fresh material. On first sight, such results may be considered as
unexpected. However, the literature in this field shows that drying very often increases flavonoid

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 content. For instance, TFC of dried kumquat was equal to 4108 mg/100 g d.m whereas in fresh
Accepted Article
material TFC was equal to 593.7 mg/100 g d.m (Lou et al., 2015). According to the authors, such
results may be attributed to the thermal destruction of cell walls structure (i.e. cellulose and lignin)
which enhanced extractability of flavonoids. What more, it has been previously reported that PEF
can destruct cell walls and thus the extractability of some compounds may be enhanced (Lou et
al., 2015). Similar findings were reported also for green tea. In the case of this raw material the
increment of TFC as a result of drying reached 41% when compared to fresh material (Roshanak
et al., 2016). In this case, researchers suggest that plants, which are still active metabolically,
during water removal respond for a stress factor by production of secondary metabolites.
Therefore, obtained results stay in accordance with published data.
As well, the effect of different drying methods and intensities of PEF-treatment on the carotenoid
content (TCC) in mango samples has been investigated. It is visible that the TCC may undergo a
significant loss under hot-air and vacuum drying. To a similar conclusion came (Braga et al.,
2019), which dried mango with hot air (60 °C) and after drying the relative content of carotenoids
in mangoes compared to fresh one was 40%. (Sehrawat et al., 2018) also noticed that losses of β-
carotene were 44-54% and 26-32% for samples dried using CD and VD, respectively.
A positive trend for TCC was found in the PEF1 assisted CD and VD samples. The retention of
total carotenoids value in the PEF pre-treated tissue increased by 50.8 mg/100 g d.m. (65.0%) and
57.5 mg/100 g d.m. (50.0%) for VD and CD, respectively, compared to untreated ones. However,
applying a higher energy input (PEF2) showed a negative effect on the TCC content on dried
mango samples. In comparison with untreated samples the total carotenoids value decreased by
47.0 mg/100 g d.m. (52.0%) and 21 mg/100 g d.m. (65.0%) for CD and VD samples, respectively.
The results demonstrated that a PEF1 pre-treatment can lead to a higher retention of carotenoids.
Conversely, a more intense PEF2 treatment prior to CD or VD resulted in a lower carotenoid
content. Such results may be related to oxidation of carotenoids which are sensitive for presence of
air or free radicals, which can be formed during electrical treatment (Zhang et al., 2011).
Fresh mango characterized by AA content equal 206.1±0.8 mg/100 g d.m, which was
lower than results obtained in raw mango (230 mg/100 g d.m.) by (Braga et al., 2019) and higher
than those (124.4 mg/100g d.m.) obtained by (Guiamba et al., 2016). Drying resulted in a decrease
of L-ascorbic acid content by approx. 42.7 and 39.9% for CD and VD, respectively. This results
are in a good correspondence to the previously reported. (Sehrawat et al., 2018). Where they have
noticed that VD due to reduced oxygen amount during drying preventing the aerobic degradation

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 and retains better ascorbic acid content than hot air drying. Moreover, in comparison to reported
Accepted Article
results, (Yao et al., 2020) obtained lower amount of ascorbic acid content in dried mango using
hot air (60°C, 1 m/s) and AA was equal 89.14 mg/100 d.m. Nevertheless, the results shows that
the variety of the mango, the method of pretreatment (Nyangena et al., 2019) and methods of
drying (Sehrawat et al., 2018) has impact on the vitamin C content in mango. Higher values for
ascorbic acid were obtained in vacuum drier without PEF pre-treatment (123.8 mg/100 g d.m.)
compared to CD (118.1 mg/100 g d.m.). The ascorbic acid values of U samples obtained in present
study were in close agreement to those reported previously (Kumar and Sagar, 2014).
However, the conducted study showed a negative effect of PEF pre-treatment on ascorbic acid
content in dried mango. The ascorbic acid content in samples obtained by PEF1 and PEF2 assisted
CD decreased from 118.1 to 71.5 (39.5 %) and 81.6 mg/100 g d.m. (30.9 %), respectively. The
same effect of PEF on ascorbic acid was observed for vacuum drying. Ascorbic acid value in VD
samples decreased from 123.8 to 61.3 (50.5 %) and 86.0 (30.5 %) mg/100 g d.m. for PEF1 and
PEF2, respectively.
The antioxidant activity of mango fruits was measured by the means of DPPH and ABTS
method and is shown in Table1. The fresh-cut mango showed the highest value of EC50,
regardless of the assay.
In turn, antioxidant properties of the dried mango samples varied from 0.38 to 0.68 mg d.m./ml for
ABTS radicals and 0.71 to 1.06 mg d.m./ml for DPPH (Table 1). The antioxidant capacity
significantly changed with the applied drying technique (p<0.05). It means, that drying improved
free radical scavenging activity of mango samples. Untreated CD and VD samples showed the
same level of antioxidant activity (0.38 mg d.m./ml for ABTS and 0.71 mg d.m./ml for DPPH,
Table1). The application of PEF, in general, did not change significantly the antioxidant activity
expressed by DPPH method of dried mango samples. However, it should be noticed that
application of 4 kJ/kg resulted in decay of free radical scavenging activity which stays in
agreement with the results obtained for different bioactive compounds that were discussed earlier.
Physical properties of dried mango
Rehydration
The rehydration is considered as one of the most important quality parameters for dried food. The
rehydration capacity depends on various drying conditions, on the final moisture content (Rząca
and Witrowa-Rajchert, 2007) and parameters of PEF pre-treatment. The rehydration ratio of
untreated and PEF treated mango slices after conventional drying, vacuum drying are shown in

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 Figure 2. PEF treatment prior to convective and vacuum drying of mango tissue showed a negative
Accepted Article
effect on the rehydration coefficient. What is interesting, the application of higher energy input led
to lower rehydration capacity. For instance, the application of PEF pre-treatment decreased the
rehydration ratio coefficient of VD samples from 3.14 to 3.11 and to 2.52 for PEF1 and PEF2,
respectively (Fig. 2b). Moreover, In the case of convective drying PEF pre-treatment decreased the
rehydration ratio of CD samples by approx. 2 and 15% for PEF1 and PEF2, respectively. However,
the differences in rehydration capacity after 60 minutes were statistically not relevant (p<0.05).

Insert Figure 2 here

However, previously reported studies showed that the rehydration ratio for CD is rather low due to
the high temperature, which lead to cracks and rigid structure and this limits the water absorption
capacity of plant tissue (Fijalkowska et al., 2017). Similarly, high temperature used during VD
resulted in poor rehydration ratio due to the thermal effect and irreversible structure changes
(Sehrawat et al., 2018). However, reduced recovery ability for preliminary PEF treated VD and
CD samples is probably caused by structure changes caused by PEF that progressed during CD
and VD drying, which was linked with irreversible overheating of products and volume shrinkage
(Sehrawat et al., 2018)and which reduces the available intercellular space that is filled with water.
The loss of soluble solids (SSL) from the dried material while rehydration are shown on figure 1a,
b. It is visible that application of PEF reduces the extraction rate of SSL from conventionally dried
mango slices (Fig 2a). Moreover, in this case the higher the applied treatment (PEF1<PEF2) the
faster process of extraction was. In the case of vacuum dried material, the same tendency is
observed. It should be noted that high PEF2 pre-treatment behaves similar to untreated (U) mango
slices (Fig 2b). It can be speculated that due to the PEF pre-treatment sugars are diffusing from the
inner part of material to the surface and while drying they are caramelizing. Formed crust may
block the extraction of residual solids during rehydration. Additionally more pronounced
shrinkage of PEF pre-treated mango, as previously reported (Barba et al., 2015), might have
impact on liberation of SSL from dried material.

Insert Figure 3 here

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 Figure 3 presents the optical properties (in CIE L*a*b* scale) of PEF pre-treated and untreated
Accepted Article
mango slices dried with hot air and under vacuum. In the case of PEF1 pre-treatment the both hot
air and vacuum dried mango showed dipper red and yellow colors and lower brightness. That can
be connected to the caramelization occurred on the surface of PEF pre-treated mango slices and
better retention of pigments, which was presented in Table 1. Furthermore, untreated and PEF2
pre-treated dried mango slices showed the similar color.

Conclusion
It was determined that the drying techniques together with different PEF treatment parameters had
a considerable impact on the bioactive compounds as the total phenolic content (TPC), total
flavonoids content (TFC), total carotenoids content (TCC), ascorbic acid (AA) and antioxidant
capacity of mango samples. Rehydration ratio as quality index for dried mango slices was also
affected by PEF treatment.
The results showed that PEF pre-treatment reduce rehydration ability for VD and CD samples by
up to 21 and 16%, respectively. PEF pre-treatment allowed to achieve higher retention of phenolic
compounds - up to 70% for PEF treated and 30% for untreated dried samples in comparison to
fresh material. For carotenoids PEF treatment yielded the maximum TCC values for PEF1 and
minimum TCC values for PEF2 for all drying methods. The antioxidant capacity value of the dried
mango samples was declined after high energy input PEF treatment. These indicate that
optimization of the PEF pre-treatment process is needed in order to avoid “overtreatment” of the
product followed by the degradation of the bioactive compounds.

Acknowledgment
Ivan Shorstkii gratefully acknowledges German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and
“Michael Lomonosov” joint scholarship program of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education
of the Russian Federation #15.13385.2019/13.2.

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 Figures captions
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Fig. 1. Scheme of PEF treatment chamber with water and mango. Here, dashed lines represent the
electric field distribution.
Fig. 2. Rehydration capacity and soluble solids extraction as a function of time for convective
dried (a) and vacuum dried (b) samples.
Fig. 3 L*, a*, b* values of untreated and PEF1, PEF2 pre-treated conventionally (a) and vacuum
dried (b) mango slices. a, …d - different letters indicate significant statistical differences.

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Accepted Article
Table 1. Effect of pulsed electric fields and drying methods on total phenolic content (TPC), total flavonoid content (TFC), total carotenoid
content (TCC), ascorbic acid and antioxidant capacity (ABTS, DPPH)
TPC
TFC TCC L-ascorbic acid EC 50 ABTS EC 50 DPPH
Sample Type of drying [mg CAE/100g
[mg QE/g d.m.] [mg/100g d.m.] [mg/100g d.m.] [mg d.m./ml] [mg d.m./ml]
d.m.]
Fresh mango - 297.6±14.7 a 0.76±0.09 f 487.1±2.0 a 206.1±0.8 a 0.68±0.03 a 1.18±0.08 a
U 120.7±4.5 e 3.38±0.14 a 90.4±2.5 e 118.1±0.3 c 0.38±0.01 c 0.71±0.01 e
PEF1 CD 163.8±6.8 d 3.01±0.04 ab 149.2±3.0 c 71.5±1.6 e 0.39±0.02 c 0.94±0.03 bcd
PEF2 206.2±6.6 bc 2.75±0.03 bc 43.4±5.8 g 81.6±2.2 d 0.48±0.03 b 1.06±0.05 ab
U 165.2±2.0 d 2.40±0.23 c 67.0±2.7 f 123.8±1.3 b 0.38±0.03 c 0.71±0.02 e
PEF1 VD 184.2±5.2 cd 1.76±0.00 d 117.8±0.4 d 61.3±0.7 f 0.38±0.02 c 0.81±0.01 de
PEF2 203.5±13.5 bc 3.20±0.16 ab 46.0±3.6 g 86.0±0.3 d 0.45±0.00 bc 0.95±0.01 bc
a…g
Different letters in columns indicate statistically significant differences (p < 0.05)

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