Propriedades higroscópicas, cinética de secagem e avaliação fisiológica e fúngica em sementes de trigo ozonizadas durante a secage

Abstract

The development of seeds with high quality has demanded effective techniques throughout yield and trading chain, based on searching for increasingly technological procedures. Considering wheat as a source of essential energy in human and animal diet, and despite the occurrence of research advances on the production sector, further studies are needed to assure the safety of wheat seed quality. Thus, this trial aimed at studying the hygroscopicity of wheat seeds, and evaluating drying-ozonation process on kinetics of drying, total fungi counting and seeds physiological properties. Hygroscopic and thermodynamic properties were determined during water desorption in seeds for different psychrometric conditions of air, kinetics and thermodynamic properties of drying for different air temperatures and ozonation time. It was also evaluated the influence of ozone exposure time and air temperature during drying by the reduction of fungi and physiological properties (electrical conductivity, vigor and germination). It should be highlighted that the evaluations were repeated after 45 days of storage. The obtained results allowed the following conclusion: a) water content of wheat seeds balance was directly proportional to the relative humidity and decreases with the temperature increase to the same value of relative humidity, as it occurs for most hygroscopic products. Chung-Pfost was the model that best fitted to experimental data. The required energy (heat desorption isoteric) increased in order to remove water from the product due to water content decrease; b) Midili was the best model to represent the drying curves of wheat seeds. The effective diffusion coefficient increased as there was an increase on drying air temperature, whose values ranged from 6.1492×10−11 to 13.3568×10−11 m2 s−1 in drying period without ozone and from 6.8302×10−11 to 8.2668×10−11 on the drying-ozonation process. The activation energy showed values of 32.18 and 5.82 kJ mol-1, to drying with and without ozone, respectively. The thermodynamic properties (enthalpy and entropy) increased as the drying temperature increased; c) there was reduction on fungi as there was an increase on exposure time to ozone, and drying air temperature. Germination, vigor and electrical conductivity of wheat seeds were not significantly influenced by the time of exposure to ozone neither by the air drying temperature. Similar results were obtained after 45 days of storage.