Abstract:In order to improve the rehydration rate and rehydration effect,the dried tilapia fillets(moisture content decreased to 0.100 0 (g/g d.b.)(dry basis))were hydrated by microwave.Tilapia fillets were put into the container made of acrylic materials with different sizes and shapes.The effect of container shape,container size,and salt content on the microwave rehydration was investigated.The result shows that the moistureed content increased gradually with the rehydration time extending,reached a maximum value and maintain stability after 250-300 s.The moisture content of sample after rehydration process did not reach the initial moisture content(3.859 0 (g/g d.b.)).It is shown that the rehydration process is irreversible,cell dehydration and damaged organizational structure during the drying process cause the rehydration ability of sample to decrease.In this study,the larger size of the container has a better rehydration effect.Compared with cubic container,cylindrical container is more advantageous to the microwave rehydration for Tilapia fillets.The dielectric loss rate of soup material increased with the increasing of NaCl contents,so that the rehydration rate increased.In summary,rehydration time by microwave is about 240 s,which saves about 2/3 time compared with the traditional water bath(about 700 s).Moreover,some models such as Peleg and Weibull model were used to fit the rehydration process.It was found that Peleg model has a higher fitness for the experiment data than Weibull model.Peleg model was more suitable for describing the rehydration process of tilapia fillets.