A Study on the Physical, Biochemical, Thermal and Textural Properties of Key Lime Fruit

Abstract

In the current study, the properties of key lime (Citrus X aurantiifolia) fruit which is abundantly available in north eastern part of India was studied. The outcomes of this work might be helpful for the design and development of machineries required for post-harvest processing of key lime fruits. Key lime fruits are round or elliptical in shape with average mass, volume, sphericity and surface area values of 74.88 ± 12.85 g, 132 ± 13.00 ml, 1.03 ± 0.02% and 79.38 ± 18.32 cm2, respectively. The average moisture and vitamin C content of key lime fruit was recorded as 88.64 ± 0.97% and 31.27 ± 0.98 mg/100g. Although the production of key lime fruits is great as well as the nutritive importance and market potential, but the utilization of fruits are less due to lack of information regarding nutritional value, perishability, astringency and poor processing technologies. Therefore, the outcomes from this work might be utilized in the manufacturing of value-added products from key lime (Citrus X aurantiifolia) through development new machineries and modification of available processing equipments.