RESERVED SPACE

STUDY ON ELECTRICAL PROPERTIES

AS DRY WEIGHT DETERMINATION
OF DURIAN
Preedawan Chaisrichonlathan1, Athapol Noomhorm2, Chusak Chavapradit3

1,2
Food Engineering and Bioprocess Technology, School of Environment,
Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology, Pathumthani 12120,
Thailand E-mail: st103509@ait.ac.th, athapol@ait.ac.th, Tel.66-2-5245489,
1,3
Post-harvest Engineering Research Group, Agricultural Engineering Research
Institute, Department of Agriculture, Pathumthani 12120, Thailand,
E-mail: chusak_c@hotmail.com, Tel. 66-2-5290663, Fax. 66-2-5290664

Internal characteristics of Montong variety mature durian

(green durians) are white pulp, brownish cream seed skin and
minimum dry weight of 32 %. Dry weight or dry matter is
utilized as objectively maturity index of durian in Thai
national standard for the benefit of quality improvement, trade
facilitation and consumer protection. Dry weight determinations
are destructive and take long time. Study on relationship
between electrical properties such as resistance and
capacitance and dry weight of durian were established as
nondestructive method with short period of maturity
determination. Capacitance values were found to be increased
with the increasing of % dry weight and resistance values were
decreasing with the increasing of % dry weight for all
specified durian size. Relationship between dry weight and
electrical properties can be proposed to the design and
development on dry weight meter for maturity determination of

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 durian.

Keywords: Durian; Dry weight; Electrical properties

Introduction

Durian is an important world fruit and is named as King of fruits. Planted

and production area in 2009 of durians in Thailand were 108,948 and 100,519
hectares, respectively. Total durians production in the year 2009 was 661,665
tons. Exporting amount and value were 156,612 tons and 2463 million baths in
2009, respectively (Office of agricultural economics, 2010). Major five
exporting markets of Thai durians are China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan and
USA. Tendency of durian export is increase according to FTA agreement. Non-
tariff measures are different in each durian importing country, National
Committee on Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards (2003) notified the
establishment of Thai Agricultural Commodity and Food Standard entitled
Durian to be used as a voluntary standard for the benefit of quality improvement,
trade facilitation and consumer protection. External appearance of mature durian
fruit specified in the standard are peduncle springiness with high intense color,
rough skin of peduncle, area around the joint between peduncle and fruit stem
swells and the peduncle is strong and springy when the fruit is swayed by holding
the peduncle, the groove between thorns becomes wider while thorn tips are drying
with brown color and are springy when squeezed, lengthwise track on the husk of
locule is more conspicuous with the exception of Garnyao variety. Standard
internal minimum characteristics of mature green durian of Montong variety are
white pulp, brownish cream seed skin and minimum dry weight (%) of 32. This
percentage of dry weight is equity with provisions concerning trading of durian
fruit of 75% mature or about 6 - 9 days to become ripe after harvest in natural
condition.
Siriphanich and Sangwanangkul (2000) suggested that judging from dry
weight and total sugar content in pulp at 70, 80 and 90% commercial maturity
were equivalent to 106, 113 and 120 DAA. The minimum maturity stage of
durian should not be less than 106 DAA and contain at least 32% dry weight.
Dielectric spectroscopy, which can be considered an emerging technology, has
the advantage of being an objective and a non destructive technique for
determination of fruit maturity as the concrete application of apple fruit but they
can be extended to other climacteric fruits although more studies are necessary
(Giraldez et al., 2010). Soltani et al., 2010 studied capacitive property of banana

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fruit in order to develop a rapid and non-invasive ripening assessment method to
control their ripening treatmentand indicated that the best frequency of sine wave
was 1 MHz. Permittivity at this frequency changed from 1.7433 for green-ripe
banana fruits to 1.6431 for full ripe ones after a five-day period. Stuart O (1973)
reported that moisture contents of material were related to their electrical
properties. Everard et al.(2006) developed prediction models for moisture and
inorganic salt contents of process cheeses by dielectric constants and dielectric
loss factors respectively. The models were found to have potential for use as
quality control screening application to measure moisture content and inorganic
salt content of process cheese.
Dry weight determination complies with moisture and evaporable substance
in AOAC 950.01 or equivalent was relevant codes in Thai Agricultural
Commodity and Food Standard on methods of analysis and sampling. This
method to determine is destructive with 2 g. of sample within 5 hours in air oven
at 100C. Nondestructive method with short period of determination was
obliged and electrical properties were studied as indirect method of dry weight
determination of durian.

Materials and Methods

Raw material

One thousand Monthong durians from Eastern and Southern parts of

Thailand were selected on various maturity stages and standard size codes
(National Committee on Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards, 2003).
Durians were acquired 24 hours after harvest. Measurements were taken with in
24 hours after compilation.

Electrical properties measurements

Capacitance and resistance values of durian samples were determined

through handheld measuring pins. Two steel needles 10 mm. in length and 5
mm. apart were designed to fix at the top of Teflon cylindrical 15 mm. in
diameter holder. Measuring pins were wired to measuring devices through a
selection switch. Capacitance and resistance values were attained from digital
multi-meter DT-9205A and Yokogawa 7555 digital multi-meter, respectively
(Figure 1). To minimize complexity of the determination, the electrode pins
were designed to insert at the full length to the middle point of fertile locule of

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each durian sample (Figure 2). Average values of three reading of each
electrical property were used to determined relationship with dry weight of
durian.

Figure 1 Instrument setup

Figure 2 Determenation of electrical properties by the electrode pin

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Dry weight determination

After electrical properties determination, samples were cross-section cut

into three sectors. Middle part of them was used to structured dry weight
measurements. Fresh pulp of the selected sample was chopped into small pieces
and 2 g. each of three samples were utilized for average dry weight
determination at 100 oC in air oven within 5 hours (AOAC 950.01 or
equivalent). Percentage of dry weight in wet basis for each sample was calculated
by Eq. (1):
Mass of dried sample
Percentage of Dry Weight =  100 (1)
Total Mass
Comparison between electrical properties; was achieved to verify maturity
stages of durians. Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was applied
with dry weight as factors and size of sample as blocks. One hundred
replications for each maturity stages were performed by repetition of the same
sample set. Capacitance value of durians was measured. The SPSS program
version 14 was used for the ANOVA and Tukey’s test of efficiency of grading
system at p < 0.05.

Results

Dry weight values of durian samples were ranging between 23 to 46 % for

all size codes. Capacitance values were increasing with the increasing of % dry
weight and resistance values were decreasing with the increasing of % dry
weight for all durian size codes. Relationship between capacitance and
resistance values and percentage of dry weight were shown in Figure 3 and 4,
respectively. Resistance values of durian were found to be increasing with the
increasing of sample sizes that confirmed by a derivation of Ohm's law, the
resistance of a conductor of uniform cross section varies as the length of the
conductor. The capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor varies directly as area
and inversely as distance of two parallel plates supported study result that
capacitance values were found to be increasing with the increasing of durian
sample sizes. In RCBD experimental design, the results showed that the effect
of dry weight and size of sample were significantly different.

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Figure 3 Relationship between % Dry weight and Capacitance values of
various sizes of Monthong variety of durian
(SC-1>4kg.; 3kg.<=. SC-2 < 4; 2kg.<=SC-3<3kg.; SC-4<2kg.).

Figure 4 Relationship between % Dry weight and Resistance values of various

sizes of Monthong variety of durian
(SC-1>4kg.; 3kg.<=. SC-2 < 4; 2kg.<=SC-3<3kg.; SC-4<2kg.).

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 Discussion

Obligation of nondestructive method with short period of durian maturity

determination and complement with Thai Agricultural Commodity and Food
Standard was ensured by study on electrical properties as indirect method of dry
weight determination. Relationship between dry weight and electrical properties
can be proposed to the design and development on dry weight meter for maturity
determination of durian.

Acknowledgments

Authors would like to thank Saowanee Meemuta and Surapon Taneyanon

(Chumphon Horticultural Research Center) and Arun Chantarachoti
(Agricultural Engineering Research Center, Chantaburi) for coordinating fruit
collection. This work was funded by the Department of Agriculture.

References

Office of agricultural economics. (2010). Mangosteen production in Thailand.

[Internet document]
URLhttp://www2.oae.go.th/statistic/yearbook50/production/horticulturalcro
p/mangoteen52.xls Accessed 01/05/2010.
National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards. (2003). Thai
Agricultural Standard TAS 3-2003 DURIAN. In: The Royal Gazette, 120 ,
115D, dated 2 October B.E.2546
Siriphanich, J. & Sangwanangkul, P. (2000). Growth, maturation and maturity
index of ‘Monthong’ durian. Thai Journal of Agricultural Science, 33, No.
1-2, 75-82.
Giráldez, M. C., Fito, P. J., Chenoll, C. & Fito, P. (2010). Development of a
dielectric spectroscopy technique for the determination of apple (Granny
Smith) maturity. Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies,
doi:10.1016/j.ifset.2010.08.002
Soltani, M., Alimardani, R. & Omid M. (2010). Prediction of banana quality
during ripening stage using capacitance sensing system. Australian Journal
of Crop Science, 4(6), 443-447
Stuart, O. N. (1973). Electrical properties of agricultural products (a critical
review) St.Joseph, Mich. American Society of Agricultural Engineers. 21
Everard, C.D., Fagan, C.C., O_Donnell, C.P., O_Callaghan, D.J. & Lyng, J.G.
(2006). Dielectric properties of process cheese from 0.3 to 3 GHz. Journal
of Food Engineering, 75, 415–422

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