Food Science

Dehydration of Lemon
20th and 21th October, 2014

Group 4 Members:
1. Gift Chanya

Chavanabutvilai

5761019

2. Earn Pemika

Sritong-in

5761092

3. Yuki Silada

Nuntajurapo

5761130

4. Pew Wittida

Chantawichayasuit 5761179

In our Food Science class, we study on dehydration and moisture content. Moisture
content is an amount of water per unit mass of moist. We dehydrated food because we
wonder how many percentages of lemon that contain water by using the moisture content to
measure the unit of water in lemon after we dehydrated it. After reading lab report you will
understand the concept of moisture content and the other stuff about dehydration that we will
include into this lab report and also why water is important to us and everything.
Purpose: To find the moisture per unit mass of a piece of fruit
Procedure:
Part One

Part Two

Results :
Data Table for the dehydration of Lemon
Name of Group
Member

Mass of sample
before

Mass of sample after

Moisture Content %

dehydration (g)

dehydration (g)
Pew

19.30 g

2.24 g

88.39%

Yuki

22.82 g

4.05 g

82.25%

Earn

18.75 g

2.23 g

88.11%

Gift

17.53 g

2.02 g

88.48%

Av

86.81%

era
ge
Mo
ist
ur
e
Co
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nt

This is the picture of us doing the part two lab, and as you see in the picture; the lemon that
we are holding is the result of what lemons look like after been dehydrated.

Analyzing Results:

1. Why did the weight of the sample decrease? Explain also in terms of
hydrogen bonds. (Requires thinking about water properties and heat of vaporization)
- The weight of the sample decreased because it loss much of water
during in the dehydration process, which the word dehydration means the loss of
water and salts essential for normal body function. And as we see through the
water properties which represent in this experiment is water have high heat of
vaporization, from this properties to break down the water to vapor the very
important thing that it has to occurs is the hydrogen bond must break down. As
there is a strong bond of hydrogen the water molecule is stay together so when
we dehydrating, we are taking water out from the fruit by heat and it refers to the
properties of heat of vaporization.
2. Comment on the changes you observed in terms of color and texture. Why do
you think these changes occurred?
- As our group had observed our lemon that were dehydrated is very
different to what it was before dehydrated. At first our lemon is bright yellow,
surface is tense and wet, the texture is smooth. But after dehydrated our lemon
become brown, it was skinny, and the texture is smooth less and dry. We think
that these changes occurred because the water has been taken away, in terms
that water is use to maintain life and make these fruit stay fresh so after the
process of dehydration it cause the color and texture of our lemon changed.
3. Do you think your sample needed more drying? Why or why not?
- We think we need more drying, because as you can see our group
use the lemon in the experiment and lemon has a lot of water and be consider as
water nourishment fruit, the only 2 hours that been given to us is not enough to
let all the water dry. So in the table above the Yukis sample which has the
highest mass but lowest moisture contents it because it did not completely dry
and we need more time to dry this sample.
4. Which group member had the highest moisture content in their sample?
- The sample that had the highest moisture content is Gifts sample
which is 88.48% and our group had the average moisture content that is 86.81%.
For more detail that we want to mention is if Yukis sample get dryer we think that
5

this sample will had the highest moisture content in our group and also for the
class as Gifts sample is being now.
5. Compare your samples to other groups who had different fruits and also
different shapes and sizes. Why did some dehydrate more efficiently than others?
- For our group which is lemon, we compared our sample to the kiwi
group which they had different shapes and sizes from us. We think that the types
of fruit affect the characteristic and also the moisture content that the fruit have,
the kiwi group got the average moisture content on 79% but for us it 86.81%. So
these moisture content is effect to how each group were dehydrated, our lemon is
contain a lot of water so it was more efficiently than kiwi and be a very good
example to work on the dehydrated experiment.

Conclusion:
To conclude our experiment we have to tell you that our lemon was represent and tell
us a very good detail about dehydrated. As you see in the analyzing result part that ask for
the changes we observed in terms of color and texture, we would reflect that what was
happen to the fruit is will happen to our body too when we were dehydrated. When we are
start to dehydrated there are some sign that tell us like we were thirst, dry mouth and skin,
and it represent that water is important to our life, even fruit it also needs water. Water has a
lot of benefits like flush toxins from the body and improves digestion and ability to think and
focus. So as we tell above dehydration is a something to work with water and in our daily life
dehydration is occur everywhere and the basic concept about this is to take water out, I hope
that the report will help you understand more about dehydration and water.