Kiwi Osmotic Dehydration Plant Design in the City of El Alto, La Paz City

Abstract

Fruit consumption has grown in the last years, especially of fruits which main difficulty is the perishable character and often seasonally, forcing the food industry to use methods of food conservation. The conventional methods present the disadvantage of altering the proper characteristics of the food, for which an alternative is the use of the osmotic dehydration that improves the quality of the product in physical terms and organoleptic, lengthening the useful fruit life to be commercialized in periods of time in which they are scarce on the market. The mentioned process is not known, with limited information of its application, being necessary the use of experimental design in arder to find the suitable conditions, interaction and influence between process variables far its later use to industrial scale, granting extra value to the fruit at the moment of its commercialization.  Befare the mentioned problems, the design of a plant dedicated to this process is proposed, using kiwi, saccharose and water as a raw material, which are accessible in the environment. The present project searches realizing a technical and economic study of the design of a kiwi osmotic dehydration plant as an alternative of industrialization of the fruit, in which the viability of the project will appear. The necessary means to achieve this proposal are the skills and toolbox of the Industrial Engineering and related branches for its complementation in points of evaluation of environmental and social character.