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Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
The present work aimed at studying the mass transfer properties of two plant foods, kiwi (a fruit) and eggplant
(a vegetable). For this convective drying experiments were conducted at different temperatures (from 50 to
80 ºC) and an air flow rate of 0.5 m/s, using slices with 6 mm thickness for both products. For the mathematical
modelling two different methods were used, one based on the thin layer model and the other based on the
Fick’s second law of diffusion. The results obtained allowed concluding that different methodologies allowed
to obtain different values of the mass transfer properties, so care must be taken when choosing an appropriate
calculation method. Regarding the values of diffusivity and mass transfer coefficient, in all cases they were
found to increase with increasing operating temperature. Both the activation energy and the activation energy
for convective mass transfer were similar for kiwi and for eggplant, indicating that both foods behave in a very
similar way when exposed to the drying conditions tested.
Description
Keywords
Activation energy Convective drying Diffusion coefficient Eggplant Kiwi Mass transfer coefficient
Citation
Guiné, R.P.F., Brito, M.F.S., & Ribeiro, J.R.P. (2017). Evaluation of Mass Transfer Properties in Convective Drying of Kiwi and Eggplant. International Journal of Food Engineering, 13(7), article nº 20160257. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/ijfe-2016-0257