Experimental and numerical investigation of transport phenomena and kinetics for convective shrimp drying

Abstract

In this study, an experimental apparatus was used to produce dried shrimp. From experiments with various air velocities and temperatures, the drying constant, moisture transfer coefficient and moisture diffusivity were obtained by using a Bi-Di correlation. An equation for determining the drying constant was established to determine the drying parameters for different drying conditions. To obtain the targeted moisture, i.e., a moisture content of 0.25 (dry basis, d.b.), drying with the highest temperature and air velocity (60 °C, 2 m/s) took 3.6 h, while the lowest temperature and air velocity (50 °C, 1 m/s) required up to 5.8 h. The transport parameters were then used to simulate the temperature and moisture content distribution inside the shrimp using ANSYS software for a certain drying condition. The results showed that the shrimp temperature increased rapidly, reaching the dry air temperature after approximately 15 min. The moisture content in the tail was markedly lower than that at the centre, which is the thickest part of the shrimp. The data from this study can be used to optimize the energy consumption in shrimp convective drying technologies.