Received: 29 July 2022 | Accepted: 22 September 2022

DOI: 10.1111/jfpp.17256

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Steam blanching and ethanol pretreatment enhance drying

rates and improve the quality attributes of apple slices via
microstructure modification

Zina Lin1 | Zhihua Geng2 | Wenxin Liang1 | Huacheng Zhu3 | Jinghua Ye4 |
Jun Wang1 | Huaide Xu1

1
College of Food Science and Engineering,
Northwest A&F University, Yangling, Abstract
China
The effect of steam blanching (SB) and ethanol pretreatment (EP) (75–­95% [v/v],
2
College of Mechanical and Electrical
Engineering, Shihezi University, Shihezi,
10–­25 min) on the drying characteristics and quality attributes of apple slices with
China hot air drying (HD) (60°C, 1.5 m/s) was evaluated. The drying time was reduced by
3
College of Electronic and Information 10.71% and 19.64–­47.32% with SB and various EPs compared with fresh; the drying
Engineering, Sichuan University, Chengdu,
China rate and effective moisture diffusion coefficient significantly accelerated. EP resulted
4
College of Information Science and in a higher water loss and solid loss of the apple samples. Furthermore, EP greatly
Engineering, Chengdu University,
affected the rehydration rate and microstructure of dried apple slices. In addition,
Chengdu, China
SB and EP played a positive role in improving the quality of dried apple slices, par-
Correspondence
ticularly a higher phytochemical concentration, and antioxidant activities compared
Jun Wang and Huaide Xu, College of Food
Science and Engineering, Northwest A&F with fresh, and EP groups exhibited higher retention of phenolic compounds. Besides,
University, Yangling 712100, China.
all the dried apple slices with SB and EPs showed a brighter color than the fresh.
Email: jun.wang@nwafu.edu.cn and
xuhuaide@aliyun.com Therefore, SB and EP can be used as appropriate pretreatment methods for the HD
of apples. This combination of the two pretreatment methods provides a theoretical
Funding information
Shaanxi Province Key R&D Program-­ basis for the pretreatment technology before drying of apple and broadens the train
General Project-­A griculture, Grant/Award
of thought in the selection of osmotic media.
Number: 2020NY-­142
Novelty impact statement: Steam blanching and ethanol pretreatments contribute to
the drying rate and quality of apple slices. The pretreatments of E85T25 and E95T25
significantly shorten the drying time, E95T25 shows the highest retention of phenolic
compounds, and E85T25 shows the highest phytochemical concentration. E85T25
and E95T25 are suitable pretreatment methods for the HD of apple slices.

1 | I NTRO D U C TI O N
Apple is a plant of the subfamily Malus of Rosaceae, which is rich in
nutrients including dietary fiber, vitamins, phenols, and other func-
tional components, and they are an important source of phytonutri-
ents related to health (Feng et al., 2021). According to the statistics
of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
(FAO), from 2000 to 2019, the world's apple production increased
from 59.13 million tons to 87.23 million tons, an increase of 47.53%.
Because of a large amount of water content, perishable deteriora-
tion, and large yield, some problems such as long-­distance trans-
portation and long-­term preservation are encountered. Processing
fresh apples can effectively improve the economic efficiency of the
apple industry and alleviate the pressure of apple storage.

Zina Lina and Zhihua Geng contributed equally to this work and should be considered co-­f irst authors.

J Food Process Preserv. 2022;46:e17256. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jfpp © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC. | 1 of 14

https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.17256
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2 of 14
Drying is a processing method that slows down the deteriora-
tion of food and maintains the quality of food by removing most of
the moisture in the food (Anderson & Westerlund, 2014). Hot air
drying (HD) has the advantages of simple operation, low cost, and
low requirements for operating environment and equipment, which
is the main technology for fruit and vegetable drying (Çağlayan &
Barutçu, 2018). However, deterioration of product quality and high
energy consumption caused by a long drying time are the major
problems in the food-­processing industry. Therefore, how to en-
hance the drying rate (DR) of fruits and vegetables has become an
important research topic at present.
The pretreatment of fruits and vegetables before drying is a
crucial processing method. A proper pretreatment method can
improve the efficiency of drying, reduce energy consumption, and
improve the quality of products (Bassey et al., 2021). Common pre-
treatment methods include blanching and osmotic pretreatment.
Steam blanching (SB) is a relatively mature pretreatment technology
in fruit and vegetable processing that plays an important role in in-
activating enzyme activity, stabilizing color, and increasing the ex-
traction rate of bioactive components (Xiao et al., 2017). Previously,
SB has been applied to the pretreatment of fruits and vegetables.
Araújo et al. (2016) evaluated the effects of six pretreatments on
the quality and nutritional contents of sliced Galega kale submit-
ted to convective drying and confirmed that SB was the most fa-
vorable of all treatments. Osmotic pretreatment is a technology
transferring water from fruits and vegetables to a solution using a
semipermeable cell membrane under high osmotic pressure (Wang
et al., 2019). Usually, sucrose hypertonic solution is selected as the
osmotic media, however, this pretreatment method will affect the
taste of the product, and it is not intended for people with diabetes
and obesity. Therefore, researchers have chosen other solutions as
alternative media in recent years, such as salt solution, concentrated
fruit juice, and different compounds including ethanol, isopropa-
nol, acetone, acetic acid, and so on (Carvalho et al., 2020; Nowicka
et al., 2015; Pantelidou et al., 2021). Ethanol has been performed
for the osmotic pretreatment of fruits and vegetables before drying
as a common chemical reagent with the advantages of a low boil-
ing point, easy volatilization, no residue, and inexpensive. Freitas
et al. (2021) applied ethanol and ultrasonic wave to the pretreat-
ment of pineapple before convection drying and evaluated their
effects on the surface color, ascorbic acid content, water activity,
and carotenoid content. Santos et al. (2021) applied ethanol to the
convection drying of carrots and discussed the mechanism from two
aspects: structural modification and physical properties of water
and ethanol. Rojas, Augusto, and Cárcel (2020) evaluated the effect
of ethanol impregnation combined with ultrasonic treatment on the
convective drying of apple slices.
At present, previous studies have shown that SB and EP play a
positive role in improving the drying efficiency and product quality
of fruits and vegetables, however, the effects of different concen-
trations of EP and soaking time combing SB on the drying charac-
teristics and quality attributes of HD apple slices have not been
reported. The aim of this study was to optimize the conditions of
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LIN et al.
EP to accelerate the DR and reduce the quality degradation of dried
apple slices during HD, and explore the mechanism of drying promo-
tion and quality preservation of EP via microstructure modification.
The combination of the two pretreatment methods broadens the
selection of osmotic medium in osmotic pretreatment and optimizes
the conditions of ethanol pretreatment, which provides a theoretical
basis for the pretreatment technology of apple slices before drying.
2 | M ATE R I A L S A N D M E TH O DS
2.1 | Raw materials
Fresh apples (Malus pumila “Fuji”) were purchased from a super-
market in the East District of the North Campus of Northwest
Agriculture and Forestry University in Yangling demonstration Zone,
Shaanxi Province. The average initial moisture content of fresh apple
samples was 80.93 ± 0.16 g/100 g (wet basis), as determined using an
oven at 105°C (Bao et al., 2021). The weight and diameter of fresh
apples were 191.27 g ± 18.53 g and 77.56 ± 3.17 mm, respectively,
and the surface had an even distribution of red and pink color. The
apples with complete shape and intact skin were selected, washed,
peeled, and cut longitudinally into thin slices of 3 mm using a slicer,
and the core was discarded. Then, these fresh apple samples were
used for pretreatment and drying (Figure 1).
2.2 | Pretreatments and drying
Fresh apple slices were blanched in a steamer for 5 min to inactivate
the enzymes, except for the fresh control group and then soaked
in ethanol (75, 85, and 95% v/v) at 25°C for 10, 15, and 25 min. The
solid/liquid ratio was about 1:10 (g/ml). After the above treatment,
the apple slices were neatly laid on a tray with fine holes and dried
in a hot air dryer.
The HD process was carried out in an electric blast drying oven
(WGL-­230B, Tester instrument Co., Ltd., Tianjin, China) at a drying
temperature of 60°C and air velocity of 1.5 m/s. During HD, a pre-
cision electronic scale (JM-­A5002, Chaoze weighing equipment Co.,
Ltd., Zhuji, China) was used to weigh each treatment group. The qual-
ity of samples was measured once every 30 min in the first 3 h and
once every 15 min after 3 h of drying. The final drying standard was
established when the weight of apple samples changed by less than
0.01 g in the last two measurements. Then, the dried apple slices
were stored in a dryer until used. Table 1 shows the combination of
experiments considered and the code assigned to each treatment.
2.3 | Drying characteristics and effective moisture
diffusion coefficient
The dimensionless moisture ratio (MR), DR (g [g/h]), and effec-
tive moisture diffusion coefficient (Deff ) were calculated from
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LIN et al. 3 of 14

F I G U R E 1 Schematic representation of apple samples pretreatment and drying process

TA B L E 1 Treatments performed as a result of steam blanching where Mt, M0, and Me are the moisture contents of instantaneous, ini-
and ethanol pretreatment tial, and equilibrium states, respectively.

Ethanol pretreatment The DR is calculated using Equation (2). In the formula, t1 and
Steam t 2 are the drying time (h). Mt1 and Mt2 are the moisture contents
blanching Concentration Impregnation
on a dry basis (g/g), calculated using Equation (3). In this formula,
No. Group (min) (%) time (min)
the total mass and dry matter mass (g) are expressed as Wt and G,
1 Fresh / / / respectively.
2 Steam 5 / /
Mt1 − M t2
3 E75T10 5 75 10 DR = , (2)
t2 − t1
4 E75T15 5 75 15
5 E75T25 5 75 25
Wt − G
6 E85T10 5 85 10 Mt = × 100 % . (3)
G
7 E85T15 5 85 15
8 E85T25 5 85 25
The Deff (m2/s) of apple slices during slow drying can be calcu-
9 E95T10 5 95 10
lated using Fick's second law. The formula is shown in Equation (4).
10 E95T15 5 95 15
In the formula, t is the drying time (s), and L is the thickness of apple
11 E95T25 5 95 25
slices (m).

the experimental drying data following previous methods (Lee & 𝜋 2 Deff
( )
Mt 8
MR = ≈ 2 exp − t . (4)
Zuo, 2013). The calculation formula is shown as follows: M0 𝜋 L2

Mt − M e By taking the natural logarithm on both sides of Equation (4),

MR = , (1)
M0 − M e Equation (5) was obtained as follows:
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4 of 14 LIN et al.

60. The positive value is reddish, and the negative value is green. The
8 𝜋 2 Deff b* value represents the yellow and blue values, which ranges from
lnMR = ln 2 − t. (5)
L2
−60 to 60. The positive value is light yellow, and the negative value
𝜋

is partial blue. The variation in the color after different treatments

The relationship curve of lnMR with t was drawn, and the Deff of was described by the total color difference ΔE (Equation [10]) (Wang
apple slices was calculated by linear regression. The Weibull distri- et al., 2018).
bution function was used to estimate the moisture diffusion coeffi-
√
cient Dcal of the HD process without considering the characteristics ΔE =
(
L∗ − L∗0
)2 ( )2 ( )2
+ a∗ − a∗0 + b∗ − b0∗ , (10)
of water migration. The formula is shown in Equation (6), where
Dcal is the estimated moisture diffusion coefficient during the HD where L*, a*, and b* are the measured values of dried apple slices;
process (m2/s); r is the equivalent mass transfer thickness of apple, L0 ∗ , a0 ∗ , and b0 ∗ are the measured values of fresh. Five different apple
where half of the thickness of apple slices is 0.0015 m; and α is the samples were used for each batch measurement.
mesoscale parameter of Weibull distribution function (s).

r2 (6)
2.6 | Rehydration ratio (RR) and microstructure
Dcal = .
𝛼
RR is used to evaluate the extent to which the cells are dam-
The relationship between the estimated moisture diffusion co- aged during drying. The previous determination method for RR
efficient Dcal and moisture effective diffusion coefficient Dcal can be was slightly modified (Zhou et al., 2020). About 2.0 g of dried
expressed using Equation (7). apple slices were weighed and soaked in distilled water at 25°C
for 30 min; the solid/liquid ratio was about 1:50 (g/ml). Then, the
D sample was drained with filter paper and weighed. The RR was
Deff = cal , (7)
Rg calculated as follows.

where Deff is the effective diffusivity of moisture during the HD pro- Wbefore
RR = . (11)
2
cess (m /s), and R g is a constant related to the geometric size. Wafter

Microstructures of dried apple samples were observed after

2.4 | Mass transfer measurements
The water loss (WL) and solid loss (SL) were calculated to evaluate
the mass transfer of apple slices (SB and EP) at different pretreat-
ment times (5, 10, 15, and 25 min) using a previous method (Zhou
et al., 2021). After drying in an oven at 105°C until the weight is
constant, the WL and SL were calculated by measuring the dry mass
of apple samples (Equations (8) and (9)). In the formula, the mass and
dry base content of samples before and at the pretreatment time (t)
are expressed by M 0 (g), Mt (g), m 0 (g), and mt (g), respectively.
( ) ( ) (SB52-­DT, Xinzhi Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Ningbo, China) for 30 min,
M0 − m0 − Mt − mt
WL( % ) = × 100 % , (8)
M0
m0 − mt
SL( % ) = × 100 % . (9)
M0
2.5 | Surface color
The surface color index L*, a*, and b* values of dried apple slices were
measured using a colorimeter (CM-­5, Konica Minolta China Co., Ltd.,
Shanghai, China). The L* value represents brightness and ranges
from 0 to 100, with 100 being very white and 0 being dark. The a*
value represents the red and green values, which range from −60 to
spraying gold using a scanning electron microscope (SEM, S-­3400 N,
Hitachi, Tokyo, Japan) and imaged at 50× and 200× magnifications.
2.7 | Determination of antioxidant activities
Phenolic compounds were extracted based on a previous method
(Zhang & Zhou, 2019) with some modifications. Samples (1.00 g) of
dried apple slice were beaten into a fine powder, passed through 40
mesh, extracted with 20 ml of ethanol (80% v/v) in an ultrasonic bath
and centrifuged for 15 min at 4°C, 10000 rpm. The extraction pro-
cess was repeated, and the two supernatants were combined. The
volume was made up to 50 ml with ethanol, and the solution was
stored in a refrigerator at 4°C until used.
The antioxidant activities of dried apple samples were evaluated
by performing DPPH radical scavenging activity (RSA) and ferric-­
reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assays.
The DPPH RSA method was slightly modified (Li et al., 2021).
The sample extracts were diluted by twice the volume, and the di-
luent (0.5 ml) was added to 5 ml of an ethanolic solution of DPPH
(0.1 mmol/L). After incubating the solution in the dark for 30 min,
a UV–­VIS spectrophotometer (UV-­1780, Shimadzu Instruments Co.,
Ltd., Suzhou, China) was used to determine the absorbance (A) at

LIN et al.
517 nm with ethanol taken as the control. The DPPH RSA (%) can be
calculated as follows:
Acontrol − Asample
DPPH RSA ( % ) = × 100. (12)
Acontrol
A previous method for determining the FRAP of dried samples
was slightly modified (Sethi et al., 2020). Briefly, 0.1 ml of the di-
luted samples (1:5) was mixed with 2 ml of distilled water and 3 ml
of working FRAP reagent. The mixture was incubated in the dark for
30 min, and the absorbance was measured at 593 nm with distilled
water taken as the control. The results are expressed as mmol FeSO 4
equivalents (mmol FeSO 4)/mg dry mass (DM).
2.8 | Determination of phytochemical content
The phytochemical content of dried apple samples included the de-
termination of total phenolic content (TPC) and total flavonoid con-
tent (TFC).
TPC was determined using the Folin–­Ciocalteu method (Ying
et al., 2015) with slight modification. Briefly, 0.5 ml of the diluted
samples (1:20) was mixed with 1 ml of Folin–­Ciocalteu reagent and re-
acted for 3 min at room temperature; then, 4 ml of Na2CO3 (120 g/L)
was added to the mixture. The absorbance at 765 nm was monitored
after incubating the solution in the dark for 60 min, and the TPCs are
expressed as gallic acid equivalent (GAE) (mg GAE/g DM).
The TFC of dried samples was measured using a previously
reported method (Tao et al., 2016). First, 2 ml of diluted samples
(1:10) was added to 0.3 ml of NaNO2 (5% w/v) for 5 min. Then,
0.3 ml of AlCl3 (10% w/v) was mixed with the compound and re-
acted for 6 min. Then, 2 ml of NaOH (4% w/v) was added to the
F I G U R E 2 Drying curves (a) and drying rate curves (b) of apple slices dried with different pretreatments. Error bars indicate the standard
deviations from three independent samples. Values in the same pattern column with different superscript letters are significantly different
(p < .05)
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5 of 14
mixture. The absorbance at 510 nm was monitored after 15 min.
The data are expressed as rutin equivalents (RE) (mg RE/100 g DM).
2.9 | Phenolic profiles
The extract was concentrated in a rotary evaporator (DLSB-­5/20,
Delixiang instrument and equipment Co., Ltd., Wuhan, China) under
reduced pressure at 35°C. The volume of spinning solution was
made up to 10 ml using chromatographic methanol, and the solution
was passed through a 0.45-­μm organic phase membrane filter and
analyzed using an HPLC system (LC-­20A, Shimadzu, Japan) accord-
ing to a previously reported method with detection at 280 nm and
320 nm (Wu et al., 2020).
2.10 | Statistical analysis
All the samples were prepared and analyzed in triplicate. Analysis
of variance (ANOVA) and Tukey tests were conducted to determine
the significance between different groups (p < .05). Statistical evalu-
ations were conducted using the IBM SPSS Statistics 20 software
and Origin 8.0 software.
3 | R E S U LT S A N D D I S CU S S I O N
3.1 | Drying characteristics
Figure 2a shows a change in dimensionless moisture content during
the HD processing. All the drying processes were stopped when the
difference in the weight of the sample in the last two registrations
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6 of 14 LIN et al.

was less than 0.01 g. With the increase in drying time, the MR of
apple slices in different groups decreased gradually (p < .05). Among
them, the decrease in the MR of fresh was the slowest, and that
in E95T25 was the fastest. The ANOVA results show that ethanol
concentration substantially affected the MR of apple slices, and sig-
nificant differences were observed among different ethanol concen-
trations. Ethanol impregnation time significantly affected the MR of
apple slices, except that no significant difference was observed be-
tween 10 min and 15 min. The drying time of E95T25 was the short-
est, that is, 225 min. Compared with the fresh, the drying time of SB
and EPs decreased by about 10.71% and 19.64–­47.32%. Therefore,
SB and the ethanol impregnation pretreatment significantly short-
ened the drying time.
The DR of apple slices during HD is shown in Figure 2b. The SB
and EP of apple slices were found to be beneficial in improving the
HD rate of apple slices. With the increase in ethanol concentration
and impregnation time, the DR of apple slices showed an overall up-
ward trend, and the increase was the most obvious in the early stage
of drying. The initial DR of E95T25 was 10.77 g (g/h), about 3.5 times
higher than the fresh. This can be attributed to the volatile nature of
ethanol, which can vaporize quickly and remove some free water in
apple slices at the initial stage of drying, and the surface tension gra-
dient produced by the rapid vaporization of ethanol on the surface
can accelerate the mass transfer process (Marangoni effect). Ethanol
impregnation pretreatment changed the internal structure of apple
slices, which can also be observed in the SEM images of apple slices
with different pretreatments. Previous studies reported that ethanol
impregnation pretreatment also showed a good drying effect, con-
sistent with the results obtained in this study (Araújo et al., 2020;
Carvalho et al., 2020; Zubernik et al., 2019).
The effective diffusion coefficients (Deff ) of apple slices under dif-
ferent pretreatment conditions are shown in Table 2. The Deff values
of different samples ranged from 3.739 × 10−9 to 7.067 × 10−9 m2/s.
The Deff values of the SB slightly decreased compared with the fresh,
but the EP groups were higher than the fresh. With the increase in
ethanol concentration and impregnation time, the effective diffu-
sion coefficient of moisture of apple slices increased as a whole, in-
dicating that the water of apple slices pretreated with ethanol was
easier to migrate and spread. The geometric parameter R g increased
with the increase in ethanol concentration and impregnation time,
from 5.641 to 8.888. This is probably because during ethanol treat-
ment, the importance of the cell wall barrier to mass transfer be-
comes more important than the cell membrane barrier (Escobar
et al., 2007). Because the cell wall barrier is unlikely to be affected
by SB, the effective diffusion of water in apple slices is mainly af-
fected by the change in the cell membrane barrier and cell contrac-
tion during SB, while in the stage of ethanol permeation, the change
in cell wall structure promotes the transport of water. Similar results
were found in a previous study. Shewale et al. (2019) suggested that
a higher water diffusivity might be the effect of electromagnetic ra-
diation pretreatment by improving the apple tissue structure.
3.2 | Mass transfer
The effect of different pretreatments on the WL and SL of the dried
apple slices is shown in Figure 3. The SB and EPs of apple slices
showed better dehydration ability than the fresh. The WL increased
significantly (p < .05) with increasing infiltration time and concentra-
tion, and the effect of infiltration time on WL is greater than concen-
tration. This is probably because when the ethanol concentration is
75%, the concentration gradient inside and outside the apple cell is
large enough to support the transfer of a large amount of water from
the apple to the ethanol solution. When the ethanol concentration
continues to increase, the change in WL is not obvious, consistent

TA B L E 2 The effective diffusion coefficients of apple slices

dried with different pretreatments

Group Deff (10 −9 m2/s) Dcal (10 −9 m2/s) Rg

Fresh 4.423 24.950 5.641

Steam 3.739 28.302 7.570
E75T10 5.631 32.134 5.707
E75T15 5.289 30.414 5.750
E75T25 6.543 41.073 6.278
E85T10 5.175 35.178 6.798
E85T15 5.471 35.613 6.509
E85T25 6.634 49.407 7.448
E95T10 5.563 47.408 8.523
E95T15 5.722 40.150 7.017
F I G U R E 3 Water loss (WL) and solid loss (SL) of different
E95T25 7.067 62.814 8.888
pretreated apple samples. Error bars indicate the standard
Note: Deff is the effective water diffusion coefficient, Dcal is the deviations from two independent samples. Values in the same
estimated water diffusion coefficient, and R g is the geometric pattern column with different superscript letters are significantly
parameter. different (p < .05)
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LIN et al. 7 of 14

with the results of effective diffusion rate of moisture. However,
with the increase in infiltration time, WL continues.
The SL of apple slices soaked in ethanol was higher than that of
steam-­treated apple slices, consistent with the trend of SL. This is
probably because a part of the cell wall material was dissolved in
ethanol (Wang et al., 2019), opening the surface channel, and dis-
solving some macromolecular substances. The formation of surface
holes and cell shrinkage and collapse of apple slices pretreated with
ethanol was observed in the SEM images, which also confirmed this
view. The effects of different pretreatment groups on mass transfer
are related to structural changes, consistent with the previous ex-
perimental conclusions. For example, when ultrasonic and osmotic
pretreatments were used in the infrared drying of ginkgo biloba
seeds, microchannels appeared on the cell surface due to the cav-
itation effect caused by ultrasound, accelerating the transport and
diffusion of solutes through the cell wall in the solid–­liquid system,
and leading to the highest SL (Boateng & Yang, 2021). In addition,
the area near the sample surface contains a water–­ethanol mixture
that evaporated into the air (Rojas et al., 2021). These effects can re-
duce the external resistance of mass transfer, which may also be one

F I G U R E 4 Pictures (A) and color parameters (B) of apple slices dried with different pretreatments. (a) L* value, (b) a* value, (c) b* value,
and (d) ΔE. Results are the mean value of five replicates. Values in the same column with different superscript letters are significantly
different (p < .05)
 |
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of the reasons for WL and SL during mass transfer. The SL of steam
can be attributed to the fact that the hot steam removed some of the
water-­soluble substances.
3.3 | Surface color
The photographs and color parameters of different pretreatments
on dried apple slices are shown in Figure 4, and the statistics are
derived from Supplementary Table S1. Figure 4B shows that the
L* value of the fresh was significantly lower than that of ethanol-­
pretreated samples and similar to the steam. With the increase in
soaking time and ethanol concentration, the L* value increased, indi-
cating that the enzymatic browning reaction was weakened. SB and
EPs significantly decreased the a* and b* values of dried apple slices.
Among them, E95T25 has the highest L* value of 71.91 and the low-
est a* and b* values, showing a whiter color than other treatment
groups, which can also be observed in the photograph of dried apple
slices shown in Figure 4A. This once again proved that SB and EP in-
hibited the enzymatic browning reaction. For example, the pretreat-
ment of pineapple samples with ethanol and ultrasound significantly
increased the values of a* and b* (95% confidence level), indicating
an increase in the red and yellow colors that could also reduce dark-
ening (Freitas et al., 2021). Other studies reported different results
such as melons (Cunha et al., 2020) were dried at 60°C after pre-
treatment with ethanol, and different dried samples were obtained.
There was a great decrease in brightness (L*) in the higher concen-
tration EP groups, probably due to the change in carotene content
in the samples, leading to a change in color. In addition, some ex-
periments confirmed that the effect of EP on color is also affected
by samples and temperature (Araújo et al., 2020). In an experiment,
white and red pulp pitaya were pretreated with ethanol and then
dried with a foam pad at 50 and 70°C. The L*, a*, and b* values of
the treated and fresh samples were measured, and the ΔE value was
calculated. For red pulp pitaya, EP increased the ΔE at both 50°C and
70°C. For white pulp pitaya, however, the ΔE of EP groups increased
significantly at 50°C, but decreased at 70°C.
3.4 | Rehydration ratio and microstructure
Rehydration refers to the reentering of exogenous water into the
dry material tissue; it is a reverse process of drying and dehydra-
tion (Liang et al., 2020), which is a critical index to estimate the
quality and measure the looseness of the internal structure of
dried products. Figure 5 shows the RR of apple samples under
different treatment conditions. The results show that compared
with the fresh, the RR of apple slices in the steam and EP groups
was significantly higher than that in the fresh. The results of
ANOVA show that ethanol impregnation time significantly af-
fected the RR of dried apple slices (p < .01), while ethanol concen-
tration had no significant effect on the RR of dried apple slices.
Under the same ethanol concentration, the RR of apple slices in
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LIN et al.
F I G U R E 5 Rehydration ratio of apple slices dried with different
pretreatments. Error bars indicate the standard deviations from
three independent samples. Values in the same pattern column
with different superscript letters are significantly different (p < .05)
the treatment group with an ethanol impregnation time of 25 min
was significantly higher than that of other treatment groups, and
the RR of E95T25 was the highest, that is, 4.71, 73.7% higher than
that of the fresh, consistent with the results of previous studies
(Rojas, Augusto, & Cárcel, 2020). The rehydration performance
of the dried product is directly related to its pretreatment, dry-
ing conditions, and its effect on the structure and composition
of the product (Rojas, Silveira, & Augusto, 2020). The degree
of damage to the cell and its structure will change the hydra-
tion ability and rehydration degree of the samples (Fijalkowska
et al., 2016). Rojas et al. confirmed that EP makes the cell wall of
pumpkin thinner, leading to good rehydration performance (Rojas
& Augusto, 2018b). In addition, the enhanced rehydration ability
of the pretreated apple slices can be attributed to the supporting
effect of ethanol solute on the cytoskeleton, reducing excessive
shrinkage during HD.
Figure 6 shows significant differences in the morphological char-
acteristics of different apple slices. The surface of fresh was rela-
tively flat with fewer voids. The surface tissue of apple slices shrank
strongly, cells collapsed, and deep holes appeared in the SB and EP
groups. The formation of these holes might have been related to
the removal of air from the intercellular space during SB. Figure 6b
shows obvious shrinkage of the cell structure (marked with arrows).
With the increase in ethanol penetration time and concentration,
the degree of collapse increased; the number of surface holes in-
creased; and the cell surface became wrinkled and uneven, probably
caused by the dissolution of cell wall material. Similar results were
reported (Rojas & Augusto, 2018a; Rojas, Silveira, & Augusto, 2020)
for pumpkins and potatoes. Porous structures and larger pores
were observed in E95T25 and E85T25. Structural changes open
up channels for water migration, increasing the rate of drying and
rehydration.
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9 of 14

F I G U R E 6 Photomicrographs of apple slices dried with different pretreatments. Magnification: 50 × (a), 200 × (b). (b) Was selected from
|

the red dotted line of (a), and the arrows indicate some special points
LIN et al.
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10 of 14 LIN et al.

3.5 | Antioxidant activities, phytochemical
concentration, and phenolic profiles
The changes in antioxidant activities of apple slices with different
pretreatments were evaluated using DPPH and FRAP methods
(Figure 7a,b). The DPPH RSA of apple slices treated with steam and
ethanol was significantly higher than that of Fresh. The DPPH RSA
of apple slices treated with ethanol was higher than that of Steam.
With the increase in ethanol impregnation concentration, the DPPH
RSA of apple slices decreased slightly. The effect of impregnation
time on DPPH was not significant. The DPPH RSA at 75% and 85%
ethanol concentration was significantly higher than that of other
treatment groups, and E85T25 was 47.8% higher than that of fresh
and 23.58% higher than that of steam.
However, the variation trend of FRAP is different from that of
DPPH RSA. With the increase in ethanol concentration, the FRAP
of apple slices decreased, while prolonging the dipping time at
the same concentration had a positive effect on FRAP. E75T25
showed the strongest antioxidant activity, reaching 7.92 mmol
FeSO 4/100 g DM, 36.4% higher than that of fresh and 25.7%
higher than that of steam. This is not consistent with the results
of RSA of DPPH free radicals, which can be attributed to their dif-
ferent antioxidant mechanisms. FRAP is based on a redox reaction
mechanism, whereas DPPH is based on an electron transfer mech-
anism (Kaprasob et al., 2017). In addition, this change might also
be affected by the changes in phenolic composition. Therefore,
it is necessary to further analyze the changes in phytochemical
composition.
Polyphenols refer to the general name of plant components
with a benzene ring containing a number of hydroxyl groups, which
are found in plant foods and have potential health-­p romoting ef-
fects (Krishnan et al., 2020). The polyphenols in apples mainly

F I G U R E 7 Phytochemical concentration and antioxidant activities of apple slices dried with different pretreatments. (a) DPPH radical
scavenging activity, (b) ferric-­reducing antioxidant power, (c) total phenolic concentration, (d) total flavonoid concentration. Error bars
indicate the standard deviations from three independent samples. Values in the same pattern column with different superscript letters are
significantly different (p < .05)
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LIN et al. 11 of 14

include flavan-­3-­alcohols, flavonoids, hydroxybenzoic acids, di-

1.218 ± 0.043bcd
1.221 ± 0.012abc
13.710 ± 0.585a
0.433 ± 0.001cd

1.534 ± 0.027ab

3.835 ± 0.008a

1.850 ± 0.001c
1.251 ± 0.026a
hydrochalcones, and anthocyanins (Baba et al., 2015), which are
closely related to nutrition, flavor, and color of apple products (Li

E95T25
et al., 2019). The TPCs in apple slices obtained under different
treatment conditions are shown in Figure 7c. Ethanol concentra-

abc
0.448 ± 0.004bc
a

ab

bc

1.998 ± 0.014 ab
13.321 ± 0.185

1.230 ± 0.002a

a
tion significantly affected the TPC of apple slices (p < .05). The

1.207 ± 0.001

3.819 ± 0.003
1.318 ± 0.067

1.421 ± 0.016
TPC of steam was 15.36 mg GAE/g DM, 62.37% higher than that

E95T15
of fresh 9.46 mg GAE/g DM. The TPC of the EP groups was 11.27–­
15.19 mg GAE/g DM, an increase of 19.13–­6 0.57% compared with
the fresh and a decrease of 1.11–­26.63% compared with the steam.

b
0.447 ± 0.003bc

ab

bc
11.798 ± 0.226

1.234 ± 0.002a

2.055 ± 0.048a
g

Note: Data are expressed as means ± standard deviation (n = 3). Values in the same pattern column with different superscript letters are significantly different (p < .05).
1.031 ± 0.005

1.453 ± 0.028

3.754 ± 0.021
1.149 ± 0.007
The increase in TPC can be attributed to the inhibition of poly-

E95T10
phenol oxidase activity by high-­temperature steam treatment and
the shortening of drying time of apple slices by ethanol impreg-
nation pretreatment, thus reducing the oxidation of polyphenols

cde

1.203 ± 0.004 cd
0.454 ± 0.008bc

ab

ab
a

1.994 ± 0.013b
d
(Sarkar et al., 2020). The TPC of apple slices in the EP groups was

1.127 ± 0.004

1.381 ± 0.042

1.486 ± 0.012

3.810 ± 0.024
9.103 ± 0.092
lower than that in the steam, probably because some polyphenols

E85T25
in apple slices were dissolved during ethanol impregnation, thus
decreasing the TPC.

1.218 ± 0.002abc

abc
cde
Flavonoids are widely distributed in the plant kingdom. Most of

c
0.452 ± 0.012bc

ab
10.233 ± 0.331

1.876 ± 0.024 c
1.390 ± 0.065

3.795 ± 0.069
1.124 ± 0.037

1.458 ± 0.124
them are combined with sugars to form glycosides or carbon sugar

E85T15
groups in plants, and some exist in free form, which can improve
the ability of antioxidant activity and RSA of free radicals in animal
bodies (Ahmed & Eun, 2017). The TFC of apple slices dried with

1.223 ± 0.008abc
cde

ab
0.411 ± 0.001de

ab

bc

1.891 ± 0.015c
f

1.449 ± 0.004
different pretreatments is shown in Figure 7d. The TPC of E85T25

5.681 ± 0.218

1.076 ± 0.002

1.347 ± 0.017

3.757 ± 0.021
was the highest, while in the apple slices treated with steam and E85T10
95% ethanol, the TPC was lower, but still significantly higher than
that of the fresh. The changing trend of TFC in different treatment
def

1.225 ± 0.001ab
ab

ab
groups was similar to that of DPPH, indicating that flavonoids may
0.490 ± 0.004 a

1.865 ± 0.016c
e

a
1.324 ± 0.004

3.812 ± 0.010
8.171 ± 0.022

1.101 ± 0.041

1.574 ± 0.114
be related to the antioxidant activity of extracts. SB and EP can
E75T25

effectively inhibit the degradation of TPC and TFC during apple

drying. This can be attributed to the increase in DR by pretreat-
TA B L E 3 Phenolic profiles of apple slices dried with different pretreatments

1.218 ± 0.003abc

ment, which reduces the thermal degradation of polyphenols. On

cd
0.466 ± 0.014 ab

ab

bc
a

1.857 ± 0.002c
d

1.434 ± 0.022
1.140 ± 0.004

1.470 ± 0.021
9.208 ± 0.075

3.760 ± 0.016
the other hand, blanching and ethanol changed the structure of cell
E75T15

membrane and cell wall, which may also inhibit the degradation of
polyphenols to some extent. However, with the increase in ethanol
concentration, the polyphenols present on the apple surface may
1.208 ± 0.004bcd
abc

ab
0.431 ± 0.001cd

bc
d

1.873 ± 0.008c
c

be dissolved, decreasing the effect of inhibiting the degradation of

8.885 ± 0.302

1.310 ± 0.004

1.487 ± 0.001

3.740 ± 0.027
1.163 ± 0.014

polyphenols.
E75T10

Apple contains a variety of phenolic compounds, including chlo-

rogenic acid, catechin, epicatechin, phloroside, and quercetin, which
have potential beneficial effects on health, such as antioxidant ac-
efg

1.189 ± 0.003de

ab
0.393 ± 0.007ef

1.863 ± 0.001c
c
e

1.298 ± 0.022

3.801 ± 0.013
1.098 ± 0.024
1.072 ± 0.014
7.718 ± 0.196

tivity, antibacterial activity, anti-­inflammatory activity, antiradiation

activity, antitumor activity, and antiobesity activity (Bai et al., 2016).
Steam

In this experiment, 10 phenols in different treatments of dried apple

slices were quantified. Chlorogenic acid and catechin were not de-
ab
cd
fg

1.846 ± 0.005c
1.180 ± 0.006e

d
g
0.379 ± 0.002f

3.809 ± 0.056
1.020 ± 0.012
1.187 ± 0.043
1.062 ± 0.017
3.386 ± 0.113

tected due to the loss in HD; the other eight substances are shown
in Table 3. The phenolic content of an apple is different under differ-
Fresh

ent treatments. Among the eight phenols, the content of epicatechin

was the highest, followed by the content of phlorizin. The content
p-­Coumaric acid

of caffeic acid was the lowest. The contents of p-­coumaric acid, fe-
Caffeic acid

Epicatechin

Ferulic acid

Ellagic acid

rulic acid, rutin, ellagic acid, and quercetin were found in the range
Quercetin
Phlorizin

of 1.031–­2.055 mg/100 g DM. On the whole, SB and EP increased

Rutin

the content of phenols and played a positive role in inhibiting

 |

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12 of 14 LIN et al.

degradation. In particular, the content of epicatechin increased

Quercetin
significantly, and the content of epicatechin in Steam and E95T25
was 127.94% and 304.90% higher than that in Fresh, respectively,

1
which may affect the antioxidant activity of apples. Heras-­Ramírez
et al. (2011) explored the effects of blanching and drying tempera-
Phlorizin

ture on polyphenolic compound stability and antioxidant capacity

−0.079
of apple pomace. The results showed that blanching pretreatment

1
could significantly increase the content of most phenolic compounds
in apple pomace, which may be caused by blanching destroying apple
tissue and releasing bound polyphenols. In addition, he suggested

−0.039
Ellagic

0.179
acid

that the loss of catechin could be attributed to the epimerization re-

1
actions at high temperature, which may be the reason why catechin
was not detected in this study.

−0.053
0.458**
−0.120
Significant negative correlations were observed between the
Rutin

content of phlorizin and those of DPPH, TPC, and TFC, and different
1

phenolics were observed. Positive correlations were observed in the

FRAP (p < .05) (Table 4). This is probably the reason why the varia-
0.709**
−0.110
Ferulic

0.435*
0.312

tion trend of each treatment group of FRAP is different from that

acid

of DPPH. In addition, DPPH RSA was positively correlated with the

1
TA B L E 4 Pearson's correlation coefficients of antioxidant activities, phytochemical concentration, and phenolic profiles

FRAP, TPC, TFC, and different phenolics (p < .01). FRAP was posi-
tively correlated with the contents of TFC, caffeic acid, p-­coumaric
p-­coumaric

acid, and ellagic acid (p < .01), confirming a close relationship be-
−0.142
*
0.396*
0.248

0.362
0.313

tween antioxidant activity and phenolic content.

acid

4 | CO N C LU S I O N
Epicatechin

0.648**

0.602**
0.633**

0.433*
0.048

0.186

The effects of SB and EPs on the characteristics and quality degrada-

1

tion of apple slices in HD were evaluated. The mass transfer, antioxi-

Caffeic acid

dant activity, phenol content, and microstructure of the dried samples

were considered. It was experimentally observed that SB and EP are
0.509**

−0.005
**

0.755**
0.671**

0.253
0.566
0.263

beneficial in improving the HD rate and shortening the drying time of

1

apple slices. With the increase in ethanol concentration and impreg-

nation time, the DR of apple slices showed an overall upward trend,
*Correlation is significant at p < .05; **Correlation is significant at p < .01.
−0.283
**
0.513**

and the increase was the most obvious at the initial stage of drying. SB
0.876**
0.676**
0.368*

0.601

0.129
0.276
TFC

and EP slowed down the browning reaction and accelerated the mass
1

transfer and rehydration, related to the changes in microstructure. In

addition, EP reduced the loss of phenolic compounds and increased
−0.034
−0.063

−0.047

−0.133
0.581**

0.375*

the retention of total phenols and total flavonoids, thus exhibiting

0.001

0.094

0.031
TPC

good antioxidant activity. Therefore, SB and EP can be used as pre-

1

treatment methods for drying apple slices. From the perspective of

sample quality and drying speed, E85T25 and E95T25 are suitable
−0.304
**

**
0.525**

0.571**
0.206
0.485

0.255
0.487
FRAP

0.180
0.181
0.112

pretreatment methods for the HD of apple slices. In the future, we

will further explore the changes in cell wall structure and composition
1

of apple slices with different pretreatments from the point of view of

microstructure changes, in order to reveal the mechanism of drying
0.507**

0.857**
**

−0.297
**

0.477**
**
0.982**
DPPH

0.279
0.622

0.628

0.210

0.597

0.120

and quality preservation of different pretreatments.

1

p-­Coumaric acid

AU TH O R S CO NTR I B U TI O N S
Caffeic acid
Epicatechin

Ferulic acid

Ellagic acid

Quercetin
Phlorizin
DPPH
FRAP

Rutin

Zina Lin: Conceptualization; Investigation; Writing -­original draft.

TPC
TFC

Zhihua Geng: Methodology; Software; Investigation. Wenxin


LIN et al.
Liang: Validation; Formal analysis; Data curation. Huacheng Zhu:
Validation; Writing -­review & editing. Jinghua Ye: Resources;
Data curation. Jun Wang: Resources; Writing -­review & editing;
Supervision; Funding acquisition. Huaide Xu: Validation; Resources;
Data curation; Writing -­ review & editing; Supervision.
AC K N OW L E D G M E N T S
This study was financially supported by the Shaanxi Province
Key R&D Program-­General Project-­A griculture (grant reference:
2020NY-­142). The authors also would like to thank the Teaching and
Research Platform of Food College for their assistance in the obser-
vation of microstructure, and the HPLC assays.
C O N FL I C T O F I N T E R E S T
The authors declared that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influ-
ence the work reported in this paper. We declare that we do not
have any commercial or associative interest that represents a con-
flict of interest in connection with the work submitted.
DATA AVA I L A B I L I T Y S TAT E M E N T
The data that support the findings of this study are available from
the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
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S U P P O R T I N G I N FO R M AT I O N
Additional supporting information can be found online in the
Supporting Information section at the end of this article.
How to cite this article: Lin, Z., Geng, Z., Liang, W., Zhu, H., Ye,
J., Wang, J., & Xu, H. (2022). Steam blanching and ethanol
pretreatment enhance drying rates and improve the quality
attributes of apple slices via microstructure modification.
Journal of Food Processing and Preservation, 46, e17256. https://
doi.org/10.1111/jfpp.17256