Kinetic retention of sialic acid and antioxidants in Malaysian edible bird’s nest during low-temperature drying

What is it about?

Drying is one of the essential processing step for dried edible bird's nest; however, sialic acid and antioxidant can be highly thermosensitive and unstable. Therefore, aim of this study was to determine the degradation kinetics of sialic acid and antioxidants during low temperature drying at 25°C-40°C as compared to conventional hot air drying at 70°C.

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Why is it important?

From the results obtained in this study, it found that sialic acid and antioxidant compounds degradation exhibited first-order kinetics. Sialic acid and antioxidant retentions were 83.9% and 96.6%, respectively at 25°C, and 78.7% and 91.5% at 40°C, respectively by low temperature drying; while, 42.5% and 38.7%, respectively at 70°C by conventional hot air drying. Finally, empirical models were significantly fitted to predict sialic acid and antioxidant retention as edible bird's nest reached a certain level of drying, which may be useful from the processing standpoint and validate the usage of low temperature drying as a process tool for retention of sialic acid and antioxidant in edible bird's nest.