MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF APRICOT DRYING

Authors : Esra ÜNLÜ, Çiğdem SOYSAL

Pages : 12-17

View : 18 | Download : 13

Publication Date : 2017-11-30

Article Type : Research Paper

Abstract :Apricot is highly appreciated temperate fruit with taste, smell, visual and nutritional properties. Apricot fruits are mostly consumed as fresh but because of their perishable nature and short storage opportunity they are generally dried. Drying is apparently one of the oldest methods in food preservation technique, used by human and commonly used for preservation of fruits and vegetables. In this study, tray drying and also microwave pretreated tray drying were applied on apricot. The drying was performed at a constant air velocity of 0,5 m/s and temperature of 60°C. For microwave pretreated hot air drying  microwave was applied to apricot at 350 W power intensity and then samples were dried in tray dryer. Moisture content trends for both tray and microwave pretreated tray drying was the same, because of the studying constant temperature, as normal and similar to literature. The fit quality of 6 thin-layer drying models: Newton, Page, Logarithmic, Henderson and Pabis, Two Term and Wang and Sing were applied to the experimental data of apricot drying. Two term model was the best fitting model for tray dried apricot. For microwave pretreated tray dried apricot, best fitting models are Logarithmic and two term.
Keywords : apricot, drying, microwave, mathematical modeling