THE INFLUENCE OF SALINITY LEVEL ON THE THERMOGRAVIMETRIC RESPONSE OF BLACK BEAUTY ZUCCHINI

Thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) is a fundamental laboratory instrument applied for investigation of the material properties in various fields such as pharmaceutical, environmental, food and petrochemical applications. The differential thermal analysis (DTA) is common thermal analysis method in which an analyte and an inert reference are heating at a certain heating rate while any temperature change is recorded. In this method, changes in the weight of a specimen are measured while its temperature is increased. Moisture and volatile contents of a sample can be measured by TGA. In our research, it provides qualitative and quantitative data for kinetics of thermal weight losses of the 'Black Beauty' zucchini samples due to the influence of three salinity levels: 1g/l, 2g/l and 4g/l NaCl. The equipment used in this experiment is Shimadzu DTG-60H. The TGA thermograms for the fruits and leaves of the germinated zucchini in different salinity conditions were studied. For the zucchini leaves, an increase in the temperature at which certain reactions take place was noted, along with the increase in the salinity level. For the determination of structural chemical components, complementary methods such as IR and UV Vis spectroscopy are necessary.