Advancements in Microwave Drying of Fresh Ginger: Drying Mode, Influencing Factors, Quality Characteristics and Challenges

The drying of fresh ginger is crucial for establishing its edible and medicinal worth during post-harvest management.Microwave drying (MD) represents a high efficiency and environmental sustainability technology that continues to garner attention for its pivotal role in advancing the sustainable development of fresh ginger. In light of this, this paper summarizes the fundamentals of microwave technology and the application of different drying modes in the drying fresh ginger, and systematically explores the parametric effects the MD of fresh ginger, its quality characterization and challenges. The findings indicate that dielectric loss serves as the central mechanism due to water as a typical dipole polarization inducing molecular vibration, rotation and friction to generate heat in MD process. The issues of non-uniform energy distribution, variable drying outcomes and the scaling-up of industrialization are still major challenges for microwave applications. In the future, potential solutions should be to strengthen the industrialization of microwave technology. In particular, it is of great significance to develop efficient and stable scale equipment, integrate artificial intelligence to optimize temperature and humidity control, and conduct in-depth research on microwave-material interaction mechanism based on numerical simulation. These technological breakthroughs will accelerate the industrial large-scale application of fresh ginger MD.