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Although Lycium barbarum is a valuable medicinal food, it is unfortunately not easy to store due to its high moisture content. In order to maximize the preservation of the medicinal value of L. barbarum, drying is increasingly used for its storage. Motivated by the need to better understand and improve the drying of L. barbarum, in this study, the VFD (vacuum freeze drying) and HD (hot air drying) are employed as drying processes, and the rehydration ratio, drying time, specific energy consumption, sensory characteristics, moisture ratio, energy consumption, moisture mobility, and amino acids and flavonoids content of dried L. barbarum are comprehensively analyzed. The results show that, after VFD, L. barbarum has lower hardness (71.53 ± 1.68), higher rehydration ratio (1.31 ± 0.02), larger volume, plump, round and smooth surface, and similar color to the fresh L. barbarum. At the same time, compared with the sample after HD, the moisture ratio of L. barbarum after VFD is lower (1.4 ± 0.1), and its content of free water is almost negligible (2.2%). In addition, the amino acids and flavonoids content of L. barbarum after VFD are closer to those of the fresh product (133.7 μmol/g, 5.69 mg/g). Based on the analysis of the drying effect on the physical and chemical properties of L. barbarum, we conclude that VFD is a promising processing technology. However, HD proves to greatly reduce the specific energy consumption and drying time when raising the temperature appropriately, whereas VFD could not achieve the same result by increasing the heating rate of VFD. Practical applications: In this paper, based on the mechanism of different drying methods, the quality of L. barbarum products after drying was compared, and the water distribution in the drying process was analyzed. It is found that using VFD technology to dry L. barbarum can improve the production efficiency of L. barbarum industry and the quality of L. barbarum products. Meanwhile, the research results can provide reference for the optimization of VFD system and the scientific formulation of process parameters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A decline in natural snow due to global warming increases the reliance of ski resorts on artificial snow. To improve the formation rate and snow amount of artificial snow under any environmental conditions, it is necessary to use atomization technology that maintains the size of liquid drops of the snow-making spray field below a critical size, thus maximizing the number of freezing droplets into ice crystals. Here, we study the effects of the gas–liquid mass-mixing ratio (GLR) and the spacing (d) between two nozzles on the characteristics of the snow-making spray field produced by atomization technology for GLR of 0.05, 0.10, 0.15, and 0.2 and d of 5, 10, 15, and 20 cm. The measurement of the morphology, velocity, and particle-size distribution of the snow-making spray field is conducted by a laser particle-size measuring instrument, particle image velocimetry, and a high-speed camera. Our results show that both the spray cone and the intersection angles increase with the increase in the GLR in a two-nozzle arrangement, while the degree of interference between the nozzles increases with the decrease in spacing, d. We also find that the inward offset of the spray is the main reason for the increase in the intersection angle and the interference area and the deviation of the spray midline. In addition, we compare the characteristics of the spray field produced by the single and the two-nozzle systems. We conclude that the flow-field velocity of the single nozzle is smaller than that of the two nozzles and the velocity gradient of the liquid drops in the two-nozzle flow field varies greatly. The maximum vorticity (Max = 147) in the case of the two-nozzle arrangement is much larger than that of the single nozzle. Moreover, by analyzing the two-nozzle flow field at different spacings, we find that the particle-size distribution is most uniform for GLR = 0.10 and d = 15 cm. Thus, our study elucidates the characteristics of spray fields suitable for snow-making toward achieving higher quality and more efficient snow-making processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]