MODELING THE MICROWAVE DRYING CHARACTERISTICS OF CARROT SLICES

Abstract

A study of the effects of Microwave drying of carrot slices was carried out. The samples were dried from moisture content of 70.71 to 10.7% (wb). Empirical models were developed for predicting the drying kinetics of the Carrot slices at different microwave powers and slice thicknesses. The drying curves were graphically used to present the relationships between moisture ratio and time of drying. The following fit parameters were obtained using Henderson and Pabis model: coefficient of determination (R²) from 0.8729 to 0.9531, error sum of squares (SSE) ranging from 0.0212 to 0.07875, and root mean square error (RMSE) from 0.05504 to 0.08461.  Fourier model gave a better fit with the following parameters: coefficient of determination (R²) from 0.9991 to 1.000, error sum of squares (SSE) ranging from 0.000121 to 0.001034, and root mean square error (RMSE) from  to 0.02274. Effective moisture diffusivity (  ranged from  to 1  while the drying constant (k) ranged from  to 0.00022 s^-1. Fourier model was therefore suggested as very suitable for predicting the drying characteristics of the carrot slices.