Pretreatment-Driven Modulation of Green Mango Drying: Kinetics, Energy Consumption, Techno-Functionality, and...

Mango is a seasonal nutritious fruit, widely recognized for its rich nutritional and phytochemical profile. A huge amount of green mango spoils every year because of unfavorable environmental factors and lack of processing strategies. This study aimed to analyze the impact of different pretreatments and temperatures on drying behavior, product quality, and environmental performance of oven-dried green mango slices. Four sample groups including control, 1% citric acid (CA), hot water blanched (HWB), and steam blanched (SB) were dried at 60°C, 65°C, and 70°C. Increasing temperature accelerated moisture removal rate in all treatments, while blanching markedly shortened the drying time, with HWB showing the highest drying rates and the shortest overall duration. Several thin-layer models were fitted to describe the drying kinetics, and the Midilli model provided the best fit for the control sample, whereas the Modified Midilli I model best described all pretreated samples (R ² > 0.99). Pretreatments also influenced the energy performance and functional properties of the dried samples, with blanching being the most effective one. Sensory evaluation showed improved color and flavor across all pretreated samples compared with the control. A gate-to-gate life cycle assessment was carried out to determine the environmental footprint and identified HWB as the lowest-impact pretreatment within the evaluated system boundary. Overall, this study provides valuable insights on valorization of green mango for development of powder-based functional ingredients.