A Novel Non-Intrusive Imaging Technique to Quantify Shrinkage of Elephant Foot Yam During Convective Drying

Abstract

Many countries are facing the problem of food wastage due to a lack of proper processing, preservation, and storage space and/or methods, which can be very effectively addressed using food drying techniques. The current work discusses the design and development of a novel convective drying system which predicts both the drying and the shrinkage characteristics of any food material simultaneously at different drying air velocities and temperatures. In the present work, the shrinkage characteristics of a cylindrical shaped Elephant Foot Yam (EFY) food sample is determined by a non-intrusive imaging method. The top and side view images of the EFY sample at drying air velocities of 2, 4, and 6 m/s and at air temperatures of 313, 323, and 333 K are captured and processed using an in-house image processing code. The shrinkage characteristics reveal the nature of the transient variation of the bulk volume and the bulk density of the EFY with its moisture content. Suitable correlations developed for the bulk volume of the EFY suggests that it varies quadratically with moisture content, whereas the bulk density varies exponentially with moisture content for all drying conditions. It was also found that the developed methodology can predict the transient volume of the drying EFY sample with an accuracy of more than 70 % (case of 2 m/s and 313 K) to 95% (case of 6 m/s and 333 K) for different cases of air velocities and temperature.

Changes in the Physical Properties and Volatile Odor Characteristics of Shiitake Mushrooms (Lentinula edodes) in Far Infrared Radiation Drying

“…Similar phenomena have been observed in jujube slices dried using hot air drying, in which high temperatures lead to significant volume shrinkage [28]. Singh et al also reported that increasing the drying temperature resulted in an increased shrinkage of Elephant Foot Yam at the same final moisture content [29].…”

Rehydration modeling and characterization of dehydrated sweet corn

“…A rehydration study is required for identifying the quantum of damage in the structure of food during drying, which overall affects the rehydration characteristics of foods (Liu et al, 2021 ). The swelling of the food material and imbibing of water into dehydrated food takes place during rehydration along with the leaching of soluble solutes from the food (Sagar et al, 2018 ; Singh et al, 2022 ). The quality always remains a major concern along with energy conservation for optimizing any dehydration process (Zhang et al, 2015 ).…”