Modeling of Time Dependent Variation of Moisture Content, Density, Porosity and Specific Volume during Drying of Apple and Potato

Modeling of Time Dependent Variation of Moisture Content, Density, Porosity and Specific Volume during Drying of Apple and Potato In this work, drying experiments were conducted for one variety of apple (Fuji) and three varieties of potato, namely, Kufri Chipsona-1, Kufri Himsona and Kufri Bahar at temperature 60, 70 and 80oC in the tray dryer. The effect of temperature on drying characteristics and quality parameters of the dried apple and potato slices was determined. For investigating the drying characteristics of apple and potato, an appropriate drying model was presented by modifying existing drying model. A non-linear regression procedure was employed to fit several drying models available in the literature to the experimental data. The models were compared according to chi-square ( χ 2 ), coefficient of determination ( R2 ) and root mean square error (RMSE). Results based on our model had close resemblance with experimental observations. Drying constant was correlated with temperature by using exponential equation.