Abstract

For cooked potato, we report maximum showing variations of the Fick’s diffusion coefficients, D, of NaCl with total salt concentration, C_t, in the foodstuff in the temperature range, 30-98°C. The variations were successfully explained with the dual mode diffusion and sorption theory, which has been successfully applied to the diffusion of NaCl in cooked Japanese radish, solidified egg white, and pork meats. The original theory (Komiyama & Iijima, 1974) was revised by changing the definitions of the parameters for the presence of liquid water droplets in the foodstuffs. The sorption isotherms, being found to be almost linear with very slight concave upward curvatures, were explained by invoking the presence of the droplets. Two thermodynamic diffusion coefficients, D_T(p) and D_T(L), of NaCl of the partition and Langmuir type sorption species, respectively, in the diffusion rate determining region were estimated for the temperature range. The temperature dependences were found to show definite rises in the range of 50-70°C, suggesting the presence of a transition in the diffusion environment.

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