EVALUATION OF THIN‐LAYER DRYING MODELS FOR DESCRIBING DRYING KINETICS OF BARBERRIES (BARBERRIES VULGARIS)

Abstract

Barberry is known as a medicinal and ornamental plant throughout the world. Edible fruit from the barberry is used in medicine to treat liver, neck and stomach cancer, for purification of the blood and for breath freshness. In order to assess and select a suitable form of the drying curve, six different semitheoretical and/or empirical models were fitted to the experimental data. Experiments were performed at air temperatures of 50, 60 and 70C. At each temperature, three air velocity values were selected: 0.5, 1 and 2 m/s. Consequently, of all the drying models, the Page model was selected as the best mathematical model according to R2, χ2 and root mean square error parameters. Constants related to the Page model are reported and regressed against air condition using multiple regression analysis. PRACTICAL APPLICATION All commercial flow dryers are designed on thin‐layer drying principles. Thin‐layer drying means to dry as one layer of sample particles or slices. In this paper we present a mathematical model for thin‐layer drying of barberry fruits (moisture ratio against time). Definition of moisture ratio as a function of time and drying condition has many advantages such as (1) easy control of dryer system, (2) lower energy consumption, (3) less thermal damage to the products and (4) lower investment. It is believed that the present study should be useful to people seeking (1) to optimize the design of drying systems and their components, and (2) to identify appropriate applications and optimal configurations for drying systems.

Effective moisture diffusivity during hot air solar drying of tomato slices

“…These results are in agreement with the observations of earlier researchers (Diamante, Munro 1993;Yaldiz et al 2001, Aghbashloo et al 2009). During the drying process, internal mass transfer occurs with liquid diffusion, vapour diffusion and capillary forces in the interior region of the product and water evaporates as it reaches the surface (Aghbashloo et al 2009). Moisture removal has capillarity movement when the water content of tomato slices is high.…”

“…where: MR exp,i -i th experimental moisture ratio MR pre,i -i th predicted moisture ratio P -number of observations z -number of constants (Aghbashloo et al 2009;Yaldiz et al 2001) The relationship between the constants and the drying variables like slice thickness and drying air velocity was also determined for the best suitable model. The effects of temperature and air velocity on equation constants were investigated by the simple linear, polynomial, logarithmic, exponential and power regression models (Guarte 1996).…”

Drying Characteristics and Assessment of Physicochemical and Microstructural Properties of Dried Culinary Banana Slices

“…According to Aghbashlo et al [9] drying of the material in single uniform layer by exposing fully to the airstream is referred as thin-layer drying. There have been many studies on thin-layer drying like apple [10], eggplant [11], fruits [12] and vegetables [13].…”

Drying Characteristics of Hawthorn Fruits in a Convective Hot-Air Dryer

“…Knowledge of the drying kinetics of biological materials is essential to the design, optimization and control of the drying processes. Several studies have been carried out to investigate the drying behavior of some vegetables and fruits by Aghbashlo et al. (2009), Akpinar et al.…”