Abstract
Drying is one of the primary methods of food preservation. Determining coefficients used in drying models is essential to predict the drying behaviour. The present study was conducted to compute effective moisture diffusivity and activation energy of samples of orange slices. The thin-layer drying experiments were carried out under five air temperatures of 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80C, air velocities of 0.5 and orange slice thickness of 6 mm. Results indicated that drying took place in the falling rate period. Moisture transfer from orange slices was described by applying the Fick’s diffusion model. The effective diffusivity values changed from 6.27×10 to 3.50×10 m/s for the range of temperatures considered. An Arrhenius relation with an activation energy value of 16466.8 to 40898.8 J/mol and the diffusivity constant value of 7.74 ×10 to 3.93×10 m/s were obtained which shows the effect of drying air temperature, air velocity and slice thickness on the diffusivity.
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