Drying kinetics of potato pulp waste

Abstract

Potato pulp waste (PPW) drying was investigated under different experimental conditions (temperatures from 50 to 70 °C and air flow from 0.06 to 0.092 m³ m - 2 s - 1) as a possible way to recover the waste generated by potato chip industries and to select the best-fit model to the experimental results of PPW drying. As a criterion to evaluate the fitting of mathematical models, a method based on the sum of the scores assigned to the four evaluated statistical parameters was used: regression coefficient (R2), relative mean error P (%), root mean square error (RMSE), and reduced chi-square (χ²). The results revealed that temperature and air velocity are important parameters to reduce PPW drying time. The models Midilli and Diffusion had the lowest sum values, i.e., with the best fit to the drying data, satisfactorily representing the drying kinetics of PPW.