Abstract
Ginkgo biloba seeds were dried in microwave drier under different microwave powers (200, 280, 460, and 640 W) to determinate the drying kinetics and color changes during drying process. Drying curves of all samples showed a long constant rate period and falling rate period along with a short heating period. The effective moisture diffusivities were found to be 3.318 × 10−9 to 1.073 × 10−8 m2/s within the range of microwave output levels and activation energy was 4.111 W/g. The L⁎ and b⁎ values of seeds decreased with drying time. However, a⁎ value decreased firstly and then increased with the increase of drying time. Artificial neural network (ANN) modeling was employed to predict the moisture ratio and color parameters (L⁎, a⁎, and b⁎). The ANN model was trained for finite iteration calculation with Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm as the training function and tansig-purelin as the network transfer function. Results showed that the ANN methodology could precisely predict experimental data with high correlation coefficient (0.9056–0.9834) and low mean square error (0.0014–2.2044). In addition, the established ANN models can be used for online prediction of moisture content and color changes of ginkgo biloba seeds during microwave drying process.
Highlights
Ginkgo biloba (GB) is the oldest relict plant of the extant gymnosperms and is referred to as an archaic living fossil
In some oriental countries, including China, Japan, and Korea, GB seeds are regarded as delicious food and tonic medicine, which is a rich source of health-promoting compounds such as flavonoids, ginkgo acid, bilobol, and ginkgolides as well as carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, and mineral elements [2]
It is wrapped by a hard shell, GB seed cannot be stored for a long time due to its relative high moisture content
Summary
Ginkgo biloba (GB) is the oldest relict plant of the extant gymnosperms and is referred to as an archaic living fossil. In some oriental countries, including China, Japan, and Korea, GB seeds are regarded as delicious food and tonic medicine, which is a rich source of health-promoting compounds such as flavonoids, ginkgo acid, bilobol, and ginkgolides as well as carbohydrates, protein, fats, vitamins, and mineral elements [2]. In China, GB is generally harvested in late September to October, which is a typical seasonal crop. It is wrapped by a hard shell, GB seed cannot be stored for a long time due to its relative high moisture content. The dried products can be used as materials for further processing for other products such as GB seeds powers
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