Investigation of Mazafati Dates Species Drying Kinetics and Effective Moisture Diffusivity under the Cabinet Solar Dryer

Authors
Mohammad Hossein Ansari Far
Mohammad Hossein Agh Khani
Mohamud Reza Golzarian
Mohammad Tabasi Zadeh
Abstract
In this research drying kinetics, moisture diffusivity and determination of most appropriate mathematical modeling and activation energy of Mazafati dates species were studied under a cabinet solar dryer.Drying experiments were carried out at three air temperatures of 50, 65, and 80ºC and three air velocities of 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 m/s. Effect of temperature and air velocity evaluated on drying time and shrinkage by using a completely randomized statistical design. Results showed that the effects of temperature and air velocity are significant on drying time. The average increase of temperature from 50ºC to 80ºC caused the drying time to decrease by 70.77%. For determination of most appropriate model, the highest value of R2 and the lowest values of c2 and RMSE were used. For mathematical modeling, eight empirical models were fitted on experimental data and the best model was selected. The result of regression analysis showed that Page model has the best fitting with data. Moreover, the lowest and highest value of moisture diffusivity were obtained as 4.309×10-10 and 0.0188×10-9 m2/s at temperatures of 80°C and 50°C, respectively. Also the values of activation energy in the drying of Mazafati dates species were found between 31.22 to 42.27 kJ/mol.
Keywords
Mazafati dates species
Cabinet solar dryer
mathematical modeling
Moisture diffusivity
Activation energy
Journal of food science and technology(Iran)
Volume 13, Issue 56
October 2015
Pages 125-141