Background:

The blueberries and blueberry products has great nutritional value, primarily because it has high anthocyanin content. Anthocyanins are potent antioxidants and have high radical-scavenging activities. Thus, the blueberry and blueberry products has become very appealing to consumers interested in functional foods. However, the anthocyanins content is affected by heat treatment and subsequent storage. The kinetics degradation of anthocyanins can be evaluated from a thermodynamic perspective, based on activation functions such as free energy, enthalpy, entropy and activation energy. Objectives: pasteurization effect and anthocyanins stability were studied during storage of pasteurized and non-pasteurized blueberries juices.

Methods:

Pasteurized and non-pasteurized blueberries juices were store at -18, 0, 5 and 10°C during 148 days. Total monomeric anthocyanins concentration was quantified at different times. Principal Components Analysis was performed and experimental results were adjusted to zero and first-order kinetic models as well as to Arrhenius and Eyring ones.

Results:

A decrease in total monomeric anthocyanins original concentration was 28.5 % due to pasteurization while for all temperatures studied, the reduction followed a first-order kinetic during storage. Degradation rate constant varied between 0.0080 - 0.0084 days-1 and half-life, 75 - 87 days for non-pasteurized juices, whereas these parameters were among 0.0023 - 0.0060 days-1 and 116 - 301 days, respectively for pasteurized ones. Activation energy was 44.66 kJ/mol while Gibbs free energy, enthalpy and entropy were 83.80 kJ/mol, 42.35 kJ/mol and -139.09 J/mol. K respectively, for the latter juices.

Conclusions:

Pasteurization caused in a 28.5 % loss of initial total monomeric anthocyanins. Anthocyanins stability was higher in pasteurized blueberries juices and resulted even bigger when store at 0°C, while in pasteurized juices stored -18 ° C were less stable anthocyanins.

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