_Applied_  
_sciences_  
_Article_  
Effect of Pretreatments on Convective and Infrared Drying  
Kinetics, Energy Consumption and Quality of Terebinth  
[PERSON] 1,*(r), [PERSON] 1(r), [PERSON] 2, [PERSON] 3(r),  
[PERSON] 4(r) and [PERSON] 4,*(r)  
Footnote 1: [[https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci](https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci)]([https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci](https://www.mdpi.com/journal/applsci))  
Footnote 14: [[https://www.mdpi.com/j](https://www.mdpi.com/j)]([https://www.mdpi.com/j](https://www.mdpi.com/j))drying can decrease or stop the enzymic and microbial activities while producing products at lower weights and volumes [5]. Since most of the fruits and vegetables can be found in a specific season, their abundance and low price can result in their decay. Therefore, processing methods can prevent their loss while offering higher profits by presenting them in other seasons [6]. Drying is a preservation technique in which the moisture content of the product is declined to a stable level. Drying fruits can be achieved through various methods including sun-drying, hot-air, microwave (MW), infrared (IR), vacuum freezing, freeze-drying, and their combinations. The dried products have a longer shelf-life and lower volume, weight, and transportation, packaging, and storage costs. Among all the mentioned aspects, a proper drying method can make it possible to access high-quality fruits throughout the year [7]. Moisture discharge in the dried samples can be achieved under controlled conditions through evaporation by hot-air (convective and vacuum) or waves microwave (MW-dryer), or moisture sublimation (freeze-drying). Convective drying will result in cellular destruction which is proportional to the amount of moisture discharged. To resolve this problem, other drying methods such as freeze-drying, microwave, etc. have been suggested. Studies have shown that all these methods suffer from several drawbacks such as long process time and high energy consumption [8]. Pretreatments can help in resolving these issues. Ultrasound (US) waves have frequencies over 18 kHz which cannot be detected by human ears. US waves can be classified into two ranges strong: low-frequency (18-100 kHz) and weak: high frequency (over 100 kHz) [9; 10; 11]. By inducing a sponge-like texture in the food, US waves can enhance the heat and mass transfer rates during the drying process. The use of US pretreatment or its direct application in the drying chamber can lead to the best results in terms of the shorter processing time and preservation of the product quality while optimizing the energy consumption [12]. On the other hand, US treatment is a safe, simple, and relatively low-cost method that can be applied in industrial scale studies that have revealed that US energy can be widely employed as a pretreatment for drying various fruits [13]. For example, blackberry treated with US, microwave (MW), and blanching (BL) used before convective drying shortened the processing time compared to the control samples. Furthermore, US treatments also led to the lowest specific energy consumption (SEC), shrinkage, and color variations [14]. Moreover, [PERSON] et al. [15] evaluated the effect of pretententents such as US, BL, and pulsed electric field (PEF) on the drying time, effective moisture diffusion, quality, and energy of the red bell pepper slices dried using freeze-drying. The results indicated that the use of various pretentents can reduce the kinetics of the drying, however, the highest effective moisture diffusion, as well as the shortest drying time and SEC, were achieved in the blanched red bell pepper. Furthermore, [PERSON] et al. [16] explored the drying time and SEC of parsley leaves drying under the US and blanching pretreatment in a convective-MW dryer at three temperatures (20, 30, and 40 \({}^{\circ}\)C) and two microwave levels (100 and 300 W).