Since sun-drying of Artemia biomass affects product quality, the potential use of a solar drier for Artemia biomass has been evaluated. The drying time and quality of dried Artemia biomass in terms of lipid and fatty acid composition using a solar drier versus sun drying was compared under various weather conditions in Bac Lieu, Mekong delta of Vietnam. When drying Artemia biomass by the solar dryer on sunny days and days with sunny intervals, the drying time was substantially reduced with 45% and 25%, respectively, compared to open sun drying. However, on cloudy/rainy days the reduction was only 7%. Solar-dried Artemia contained higher levels of lipids and fatty acids than open sun-dried Artemia samples. When drying was performed on sunny days the quality of the dried product was relatively comparable to fresh Artemia,whereas in biomass dried on cloudy/rainy days these values were inferior to the control under both drying conditions. Generally, all analyzed parameters of solar-dried Artemia differed less from fresh Artemia than those of sun-dried samples. This preliminary work has proved that the use of a solar drier for drying Artemia biomass is a simple and promising method, which could produce a better quality of dried Artemia that can be applied in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Furthermore, the results revealed that the use of renewable energy sources in solar dryer was more efficient than that of open sun drying to adapt climate change as well as the environmentally responsible approach.
Tạp chí khoa học Trường Đại học Cần Thơ
Lầu 4, Nhà Điều Hành, Khu II, đường 3/2, P. Xuân Khánh, Q. Ninh Kiều, TP. Cần Thơ
Điện thoại: (0292) 3 872 157; Email: tapchidhct@ctu.edu.vn
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