Abstract
The dehydration parameters (temperature, thickness, and mass load) statistically significantly (p<0.05) affect the thin-layer convective dehydration of potato slices. The slices with thicknesses of 3, 5, and 8 mm were dehydrated as monolayers at different temperatures (30, 50, and 70 °C) and mass load (1.00, 0.63, and 0.38 kg m-2). The results showed that the shortest dehydration time (183 minutes), the smallest energy consumption (0.176 kWh), and the smallest emission of carbon dioxide (0.17 kg) had the dehydration model of potato slices with a 3 mm thickness, 0.38 kg m-2 mass load, dehydrated on the temperature of 70 °C. Dehydration of potato slices of 8 mm slice thickness dehydrated at 70 °C, with 0.38 kg m-2 mass load, showed the highest resistance to mass transfer (the maximum effective moisture diffusivity 2.3761 × 10-7 ± 4.45646 × 10-9 m2 s−1) and the minimum activation energy (27.02 kJ mol-1). Data obtained from these mathematical models could predict and optimize the thin layer dehydration of potato slices, with a dominant influence of temperature and potato slice thickness parameters as variables.
Highlights
Due to the high moisture content, safe storage of freshly harvested agricultural products is challenging, and the materials' quality is rapidly lost
The statistical significance of individual coefficients was noted. Data obtained from these mathematical models could predict and optimize the thin layer dehydration of potato slices based on the experimental plan
The dehydration time, energy consumption, carbon dioxide emission, effective moisture diffusivity, and activation energy of potato slice dehydration statistically significantly depend on convective hot air dehydration parameters
Summary
Due to the high moisture content, safe storage of freshly harvested agricultural products is challenging, and the materials' quality is rapidly lost. Dehydration is the primary physical method to ensure safe and long storage and usage diversity of the foodstuffs [1]. Among the different dehydration models, convective hot air dehydrators are the widely used systems to dehydrate agricultural and food products [2]. The traditional convective dehydration has limited heat transfer from the hot air into the dehydration material's inner sections, resulting in non-efficient consumption of energy, contamination of the environment, a low dehydration time, and low quality of dehydrated products [3, 4].
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