Texture Change Kinetics of African Breadfruit (Treculia Africana) Parboiling

Wide application of African breadfruit (Treculia africana) in the food industry is limited by dearth of information on its thermal strength kinetics when parboiled. The texture parameter behavior of African breadfruit when parboiling was investigated using the fractural force obtained from compression test on the Instron testing machine. Parboiling was done using a thermostat fitted water bath for temperatures ranging from ambient condition through 60oC, 80oC and 100oC, at parboiling times of 10 min, 20 min, 30 min, and 40 min. The fracture forces obtained was imputed into the zero order, first order and second order rate equation models and the curve of best fitted reaction kinetic model was obtained. It was discovered that textural change of African breadfruit parboiling follows second order reaction kinetics model as well as the best regression reliability with a coefficient of determination of 99.540% with a reaction rate constant of 1.416X10-9 min-1, and the pre-exponential factor observed to be 1.36X10-9min-1. This work also revealed that the reaction rate of African breadfruit parboiling is dependent on temperature. The activation energy was determined to be117.851 kJ/mol