Some Aspects of the Modelling of Dried Red Beets Rehydration Process

Abstract

Some dehydrated products must be rehydrated before consumption or further industry processing. Optimization of the rehydration process needs mathematical models of the process. Despite the widespread use of computers and their associated software, empirical equations are still widely used in view of their simplicity and ease of computation. The mathematical description of the kinetics of mass gain, volume increase, dry matter loss, and moisture content increase and changes of rehydration indices during the rehydration of dried red beets was investigated. The effects of drying air temperature (Td), drying air velocity (vd), characteristic dimension (L), and rehydration temperature (Tr) on model constants were also examined. Red beets cubes (10 mm) and slices (5 and 10 mm) were dried in natural convection (vd = 0.01 m/s), forced convection (vd = 2 m/s), and fluidization (vd = 6 m/s) at Td = 50, 60, and 70 °C. The rehydration was conducted in distilled water at Tr = 20, 45, and 70 °C. The kinetics of rehydrating dried red beets was modelled applying five empirical models: Peleg, Lewis (Newton), Henderson–Pabis, Page, and modified Page. Equations were developed to make the model constants dependent on Td, vd, L, and Tr. Artificial neural networks (ANNs) (feedforward multilayer perceptron) were adopted to condition the rehydration indices on Td, vd, L, and Tr. The following models can be recommended as the most acceptable: (1) the modified Page model for mass gain (RMSE = 0.0236–0.0897) and for volume increase (RMSE = 0.0213–0.0972), (2) the Peleg model for dry mass loss (RMSE = 0.0161–0.610), and (3) the Henderson–Pabis model for moisture content increase (RMSE = 0.0350–0.1062). The ANNs performed the rehydration indices in an acceptable way (RMSE = 0.0528–0.2285). Both the rehydration indices and model constants depended (but to a different degree) on the investigated drying and rehydration conditions.