title: Fruit and Vegetable Quality Assessment via Dielectric Sensing.
abstract: The demand for improved food quality has been accompanied by a technological boost. This fact enhances the possibility of improving the quality of horticultural products, leading towards healthier consumption of fruits and vegetables. A better electrical characterization of the dielectric properties of fruits and vegetables is required for this purpose. Moreover, a focused study of dielectric spectroscopy and advanced dielectric sensing is a highly interesting topic. This review explains the dielectric property basics and classifies the dielectric spectroscopy measurement techniques. It comprehensively and chronologically covers the dielectric experiments explored for fruits and vegetables, along with their appropriate sensing instrumentation, analytical modelling methods and conclusions. An in-depth definition of dielectric spectroscopy and its usefulness in the electric characterization of food materials is presented, along with the various sensor techniques used for dielectric measurements. The collective data are tabulated in a summary of the dielectric findings in horticultural field investigations, which will facilitate more advanced and focused explorations in the future.
authors.affiliation: Departmentof Engineering, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. dalia.elkhaled@gmail.com.|BITAL (Research Center on Agricultural and Food Biotechnology), University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain. dalia.elkhaled@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Dalia
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: El Khaled
authors.affiliation: Departmentof Engineering, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. nnovas@ual.es.|BITAL (Research Center on Agricultural and Food Biotechnology), University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain. nnovas@ual.es.
authors.forename: Nuria
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Novas
authors.affiliation: Departmentof Engineering, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. jgazquez@ual.es.|BITAL (Research Center on Agricultural and Food Biotechnology), University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain. jgazquez@ual.es.
authors.forename: Jose A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Gazquez
authors.affiliation: Departmentof Engineering, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. fmanzano@ual.es.|BITAL (Research Center on Agricultural and Food Biotechnology), University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain. fmanzano@ual.es.
authors.forename: Rosa M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Garcia
authors.affiliation: Departmentof Engineering, University of Almería, 04120 Almería, Spain. fmanzano@ual.es.|BITAL (Research Center on Agricultural and Food Biotechnology), University of Almeria, 04120 Almeria, Spain. fmanzano@ual.es.
authors.forename: Francisco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Manzano-Agugliaro
keywords: dielectric; fruits; non-destructive; quality; sensing; vegetables