| Summary: | The objective was to design a feasible drying method to increase the retention rates of phytoene (PT), phytofluene (PTF) and lycopene (LYC) in tomato powder. The method was to compare the effects of vacuum freeze-drying (FD), vacuum drying (VD) and hot-air drying (HAD) technologies on tomato pulp rich in PT, PTF and LYC. When dried by HAD, the retention rates of PT, PTF and LYC decreased significantly (<i>p</i> < 0.05) only when the water content decreased from 30% to 3.5%. When dried by VD, the temperatures had no significant effect on the retention rates, and only alkaline conditions (pH = 9), Fe<sup>3+</sup> and Al<sup>3+</sup> could significantly reduce the retention rates (<i>p</i> < 0.05). Therefore, a combined drying process (CDP) was designed: before the water content decreased to 50%, HD (60 °C) technology was used; then, the paste was dried via VD (80 °C, 0.08 MPa) technology till the water content reached 5 ± 2%; loading weight was 40 g (thinkness 5.70 mm) for each batch. Compared with VD alone, the CDP technology improved the retention rates of PT and LYC by 12% and 36%, respectively, while PTF decreased by only 6%.
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