Perishable commodities like cassava necessitate effective postharvest preservation for various industrial applications. Hence, optimizing pretreatment processes and modeling drying kinetics hold paramount importance. This study aimed to optimize cassava pretreatment using the central composite design of a response surface methodology while also assessing microstructure and dehydration kinetics. Diverse chemical and thermal pretreatments were explored, encompassing sodium metabisulfite concentrations (0-4% w/w), citric acid concentrations (0-4% w/w), and blanching time (0-4 min). The four investigated responses were moisture content, whiteness index, activation energy (Ea), and effective moisture diffusivity (Deff). Employing five established drying models, suitability was appraised after optimal pretreatment conditions were determined. The findings revealed that moisture content ranged from 5.82 to 9.42% db, whereas the whiteness index ranged from 87.16 to 94.23. Deff and Ea ranged from 5.06 × 10-9 to 6.71 × 10-9 m2/s and 29.65-33.28 kJ/mol, respectively. The optimal pretreatment conditions for dried cassava were identified by optimizing the use of 1.31% citric acid, 1.03% sodium metabisulfite, and blanching time for 1.01 min. The microstructure indicated that particular chemical and thermal pretreatment configurations yielded particles in the shape of circular and elliptical granules. The logarithmic model provided the most accurate description of the dehydration kinetics, with the highest R2 value (0.9859) and the lowest χ2, RSME, and SSE values of 0.0351, 0.0015, and 0.0123, respectively.
Keywords: cassava tubers; chemical treatment; dehydration kinetics; microstructure; optimization; thermal treatment.