Diffusion mechanisms during the osmotic dehydration of Granny Smith apples subjected to a moderate electric field

Sucrose diffusion in Granny Smith apples is highly influenced by the application of a MEF, meaning that as the application of the electric field increases, the higher the effective diffusion coefficient (Deff) becomes. The exponential decay from the Fick law, in the tail of the diffusion profile, does not represent the shape of the data. However, as the application of the electric field increases the fit of Fick's model improves, and specifically for an electric field of 17 V/cm it is observed that the behavior of the experimental data resembles the behavior predicted by Fick's second law. The empirical parameter α for the anomalous diffusion model was always greater than one, but as the MEF increased, α was monotonically tending to one.