Drying Kinetics of Sandge, an Indian Traditional Food Adjunct in Air Convective Drying

Renu Khedkar, Amarinder Singh Bawa

Food adjunct, drying kinetics, empirical models, molecular diffusivity.

Sandge an Indian traditional food adjunct was prepared by using standardized recipe of carrot(80%), okra(9%), green chilies(3.5%), coriander leaves(2%) , sesame seeds(3.5%) and salt (2%) in an air convective dryer. Studies on drying kinetics of sandgewere conducted at 45, 50 & 55ºC.The graph of drying rate and the drying curve revealed that drying took place in the falling rate period and increase in drying temperature accelerated the drying process.The experimental data of drying kinetics was satisfactorily fitted to four different empirical models for thin layer drying: Newton, Page, Logarithmic, Henderson& Pabis.With the selectioncriteria of high values of coefficient of determination (R2), low values of root mean square error (RMSE) between and chi-square (χ2), Newton’s model was selected as perfect fit. Applying the model of Fickian unsteady state diffusion, effective moisture diffusion coefficient (De) was calculated.The diffusivity varied from 17.5 x 10-7m2/s to 1.75 x 10-5m2/s within the temperature range and fitted the Arrhenius equation. The molecular diffusivity at infinite temperature, Deº was estimated to be 0.038m2/s and the activation energy for moisture diffusion, E to be 9.57k J/mol.

10.22161/ijaers/3.10.12