Determination of Drying Kinetics of Periwinkle Meat (Turritella communis) By Application of Some Thin Layer Models

Abstract

Drying is an important process that increases the shelf life of agricultural products. It is a process whereby the activities of most decay causing microbes are either deactivated or reduced to safe levels. This work determined the drying kinetics of Periwinkle Meaty within the drying temperature range of 50^°C through to 100°C using a laboratory convective oven. Drying data was fitted to five thin layer drying models such as artificial neural network (ANN), page, Henderson-pabis, Lewis and a newly developed model (NDM). The various related thin layer drying model constants and coefficients were obtained using non-linear regression statistical methods. The result shows that drying took place almost entirely within the falling rate period. The temperature dependent effective diffusivity was shown to be in values that ranged from 1.49x10^-6 to 6.30x10^-7m²/sec in the temperature range applied in this work. And the related activation energy was found to be 15.43kJ/mol. The fitting results also showed the ANN and NDM closely followed by the Henderson-Parbis’ as suitable for predicting the thin layer drying kinetics of periwinkle meaty.