HYDRODYNAMIC STUDY OF A MIXTURE OF WEST INDIAN CHERRY RESIDUE AND SOYBEAN GRAINS IN A SPOUTED BED

West Indian cherry, widely known as acerola in Latin America, is a fruit rich in vitamin C and other bioactive compounds. In Brazil, the largest producer of acerola in the world, the processing of this fruit results in large amounts of waste or residues. A method that allows these residues to be reused is drying. However, acerola residue has low flowability in spouted beds due to its low density and high moisture content. Therefore, in this study, soybean was used as an auxiliary material to maintain the stability of the fluid dynamics and the characteristics of the food end product. Because this process involves a mixture of solids of different sizes, shapes and densities, particle segregation may occur. This article reports on a study of the fluid dynamics of the mixture of acerola residue and soybean in a spouted bed, operating with different mass fractions of residue and different static bed heights. Particle segregation was analysed, allowing for the quantification of the effect of the initial concentration of acerola residue on the degree of miscibility. The content of phenolic compounds, flavonoids and ascorbic acid, as well as the moisture and mixture indices at different drying times, were also quantified.