1Department of Food Engineering, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, BCKV, Mohanpur-741 252, West Bengal, India
2Department of Plantation Crops and Processing, Faculty of Horticulture, UBKV, Pundibari-736 165, West Bengal, India
3Department of Process and Food Engineering, CAEPHT, Ranipool-737 135, Sikkim, India
Department of Process and Food Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering and Post Harvest Technology, Ranipool-737 135, Sikkim, India
*Corresponding author's e-mail: huiremboris@gmail.com
Online published on 30 January, 2019.
Drying is a complex phenomenon and study of drying kinetics and modelling is very important for describing the moisture movement with respect to time and predicting the dryer performance. Considering this fact, vacuum drying characteristics of cherry pepper was studied at different drying temperatures (50, 60 and 70°C). Cherry pepper were dried from initial moisture content of about 400% (dry basis) to 13–14.5% (dry basis) at different temperatures at 630 mm Hg vacuum. Time required to dry cherry peppers at 50, 60 and 70p C plate temperatures were 19 h, 9.75 h and 8 h respectively. Moisture reduction of cherry pepper at various temperatures was modelled using thin-layer models viz. Lewis, Page, Modified Page and Henderson & Pabis model. Based on highest value of coefficient of determination, lowest values of reduced chi square and root mean square error, Modified Page model was found to be the best fit. Moisture diffusivity increased from 6.27 × 10−10 to 1.9× 10−9m2s−1 asplate temperatureincreased from 50–70°C. Activation energywas estimated to be 50.98 kJkgmol−1.
Cherry pepper, Effective moisture diffusivity, Thin-layer model, Vacuum drying
