The purpose of this study was to develop the prototype drying system for drying the Pisang-Awak (PA) banana. It was designed and implemented to study the drying kinetics in each drying mode: hot air drying (HA), infrared drying (IR), and hybrid drying (Hy). The experimental results were fit with simulation results from the finite element method (FEM). Two statistical parameters, the coefficient of determination R 2 and the root mean square error RMSE ð Þ, were used to assess the fit between experimental results and simulation results, and their respective ranges were 0.960-0.997 and 0.014-0.050. For PA banana drying the most suitable drying mode is hybrid, combining 1.5 m/s flow of hot air and IR heating at 60 C drying temperature. The axial and radial shrinkages of PA banana were the largest in Hy mode at 60 C, namely 18.2 and 27.3%, respectively, and this choice gave the best/lowest specific energy consumption (SEC) for drying performance and the best final dried PA banana. Practical ApplicationsThe understanding of the drying kinetics and shrinkage properties of the dried PA banana is important for the choice of drying process because these reflect the quality of the dried product and help an engineer to design the drying system. Therefore, the empirical mathematical modeling of the drying process serves a crucial role in the food industry sector. These results can be used to quantify temperature and moisture content as functions of drying time to monitor the drying process of PA banana, saving energy and time. | INTRODUCTIONIn the years 2017-2019, the top three produced bananas in Thailand were Pisang-Awak (PA) banana, Banana, and Pisang-Mas banana, at respectively 3,993, 903, and 670 ktons (Department of Agricultural Extension, n.d.). The PA banana is an economic plant widely used in Thai dessert recipes. Consuming two such bananas can give enough energy for up to 90 min of exercise, with also large doses of dietary fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Benefits of bananas to the human body include reducing bad breath, providing anti-oxidants, and relief to constipation, morning sickness, hemorrhoids, obesity, high blood pressure, broken capillaries, and so on (Robinson & Galan Sauco, 2011).Growing bananas gives year-round production in Thailand, but in some seasons the production can exceed the demand, while the shelf life of bananas is only 5 to 7 days before spoilage by the enzymes in them (Naknaen, Charoenthaikij, & Kerdsup, 2016;Sankat & Castaigne, 2004). Processing banana is an alternative way to address this problem.Drying is one way to preserve food products for prolonged storage. It removes water or moisture under controlled conditions by the use of heat. The low moisture level then inhibits the growth of harmful microbes, inactivates enzymes, and helps avoid toxins, parasites, and various insects (Bala, Mondol, Biswas, Das Chowdury, & Janjai, 2003). The design of a drying system requires the use of

A microwave heating process for palm fruit can quickly remove the moisture content and destroy any free fatty acids (FFA) in palm fruit. In this paper, the key parameters for palm fruit to design an effective microwave heating system, effective moisture diffusivity, activation energy and dielectric model are reported. These parameters can predict the temperature distribution and moisture ratio in var. Tenera palm fruit when using a 2.45 GHz microwave, heating at four different power levels (160, 320, 480, 800 W). By assuming that each palm layer is homogeneous, a model composed of physical layers (mesocarp, shell and kernel) was developed. The effective moisture diffusivity of the palm fruit is determined by Fick's second law for mass transport mechanism. The calculated value of the effective moisture diffusivity of the palm fruit increases with the temperature since the water molecules in the palm fruit diffuses quickly at high temperature. In addition, the activation energy of palm fruit ranges from 31.06 to 48.91 kJ(mol) -1 with the different microwave powers, which were obtained by applying the linear regression technique to the Arrhenius equation model. Finally, the comparisons between the computed and the actual experiment for the moisture ratio with the different microwave powers were computed from the effective moisture diffusivity in the palm fruit. The results obtained from both data sets highly correlate.

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