UNIFICATION OF FRUIT WATER SORPTION ISOTHERMS USING ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS

Abstract

The chemical composition, water activity, temperature and equilibrium moisture content (EMC) for 10 selected fruits were determined. Two methods of water sorption modeling, the GAB equation and the artificial neural network (ANN) method, were compared for their ability to predict water sorption behavior. Unlike the GAB equation, which uses only physical data for modeling, the ANN method uses both physical and chemical compositional data to make predictions. The ANN was superior, in most cases, to that of the GAB equation, in predicting EMC. This superiority was due to the availability of the additional chemical compositional information. The ANN method could predict EMC with a mean relative error of 9.85% and a standard error (S x ) of 1.59% EMC. The correlation coefficient (r 2) of the relationship between the actual and predicted values of equilibrium moisture content obtained by the ANN was 0.9938. The ANN model was able to show a temperature dependent crossing of water sorption isotherms, due to the dissolution of sugar crystals in the fruit. The ANN was also able to predict the extent of crossing, depending upon differences in the individual fruit chemical composition.