Vol. 12, Issue 3 (2023)

Author(s):
Dakshayani Rajendran, Mahendran Radhakrishnan, Vidyalakshmi Rajagopal and Jagan Mohan Rangarajan

Abstract:
Seaweed is a nutritious food source that has gained importance in recent times due to its health potential and landless cultivation. However, it has a high moisture content of 75-80%, which must be reduced to avoid spoilage and increase its shelf life before further processing. Drying and milling are common practices to reduce the moisture content to 10% or less, but they impact seaweeds volatile composition. This study examined the impact of drying and milling techniques includes sun drying, solar drying, hot air oven drying, freeze drying and the milling by rotary mill (pulveriser) and mechanical grinder. Around 60-80 compounds were identified based the drying and milling technique used. Principal Compound Analysis (PCA) and Discriminant Functional Analysis (DFA) revealed that both drying and size reduction influence seaweeds volatile profile. The Freeze dried Kappaphycus alvarezii had the least volatile change compared to other drying techniques, and rotary milling caused less volatile composition loss compared to mechanical grinding.