Blending or mixing two or more of fruit juices is able to improve the quality of juices as
compared to single flavour. Pineapple and mango are among the popular tropical fruits in
Malaysia. Despite the massive production of pineapple in Malaysia, utilisation of pineapple as
a juice remains unpopular due to its exotic and strong flavour. Blending of pineapple with
mango is believed to overcome this issue. Nevertheless, suitable blending ratios play important role in the end product quality. The present work aims to determine the physicochemical
and nutritional quality of fresh blended pineapple-mango juice at different blending ratios for
25 days of refrigerated storage (4 ± 2°C). Physicochemical (colour, pH, titratable acidity, and
total soluble solid) and nutritional (vitamin C, total phenolic content, and total antioxidant
content) properties of fresh pineapple-mango juice blends of ratio 80% pineapple with 20%
mango (R80:20) and 50% pineapple with 50% mango (50:50) were determined throughout 25
days of storage. Pineapple-mango juice blends at blending ratio of R80:20 exhibited better
qualities in term of colour (lightness, chroma, hue, and browning index), chemical composition, and nutritional content.
The oil palm trunk (OPT) currently represents a massive volume of agricultural waste with great potential to be rapidly developed in the wood composite industry. An improvement in sawing technology has potential to improve the yield of the commercially hard outer core of the OPT by about 27 % thus replacing the present sub-optimal square sawing pattern with a more efficient and higher-yielding polygon sawing pattern. To achieve this, a 'wedge' device was designed to be mounted on the existing sawing carriage. The proper methodology was followed including extraction of the design layout of the machine, development of the schematic drawing and wireframe model, modification of the design in computer-aided design (CAD) environment, the performance of stress, total deformation, and fatigue analysis, and production of a complete drawing for fabrication purpose. Results from the analysis showed that the designed part was safe to be fabricated with a small maximum equivalent stress of 2.546 MPa, maximum total deformation of 0.007935 mm and total life cycle of one million cycles. These evaluation results indicate that the material used for the wedge device (including the base part) satisfies the design requirements of static strength and is safe within its designed fatigue life.
The physico-mechanical properties data of fruits are important in the design of various handling, packing, and storage and transportation system. The physical-mechanical properties of pineapple fruit from the Josapine variety, namely the weight of the fruit (with and without peel), pulp to peel ratio, diameter of the whole fruit (with and without peel), at three different positions along the longitudinal axis of the fruit, length of the fruit (with and without peel) and the length of crown were studied using the standard method at seven stages of maturity during storage at 25°C and 52% (RH). The effect of fruit maturity on the firmness of each fruit at three different locations was measured using a cylindrical die of 6 mm in diameter with the Instron Universal Testing Machine. The results indicated that the average total weight of a single fruit is 886.86 ± 49.67 g. The average pulp to peel ratio is 1.91. The average diameter (with and without peel) was 86.83 ± 5.24 mm and 80.95 ± 4.15 mm (top section), 100.77 ± 3.84 mm and 90.19 ± 3.73 mm (middle section) and 97.17 ± 3.49 mm and 73.30 ± 5.11 mm (bottom section), respectively. The average length of the fruit (with and without peel) was 126.65 mm and 113.64 mm, respectively. The average length of crown was 89.13 mm. The firmness of the fruits was found to decrease with the stage of maturity. These data are important in determining the optimum stage of maturity for fruit processing.
Pomelo pomace (PP) from Malaysia Tambun White (PO52) variety, dried at different temperature under vacuum condition were evaluated. PP was obtained after extraction process and contained high moisture content (MC). Dried PP can be used as an alternative to livestock feed, hence, dried concentrated form was preferable. Nevertheless, drying process significantly affects the physico-chemical properties of a dried product. Therefore, the present study was carried out to discover the effects of drying temperature on the physico-chemical properties (MC, pH, vitamin C, browning index (BI) and total color change) of PP. The PP was dried at different drying temperature (50, 60, 70, 80 and 90°C) using a vacuum drying (VD) oven for 24 hr. The freeze drying (FD) process was used as a control. The result showed the MC gradually decreased with increasing drying temperature, of which similar trend was also observed for the water activity and total soluble solids (TSS). In contrast, pH showed increment in value with elevated drying temperature. Interestingly, at 90°C, vitamin C of VD (30.38 mg / 100 g DW) was higher than FD pomelo pomace (21.10 mg / 100 g DW). BI significantly increased as temperature increased. However, no significant changes were observed for total color change after VD. In conclusion, VD at 90°C showed the most recommended temperature because the composition of quality properties at this temperature was not significantly varied with control. These fundamentals information of pomelo pomace could be the guideline for postharvest technologist and food processing manufacturers for various applications.