International Journal of Food

Engineering
Volume 2, Issue 1 2006 Article 5

Mathematical Modeling and Experimental

Study on Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

Ebru Kavak Akpinar∗ Yasar Bicer†

∗
Firat University, Elazig-Turkey, eakpinar@firat.edu.tr
†
Firat University, Elazig-Turkey, ybicer@firat.edu.tr

Copyright 2006
c The Berkeley Electronic Press. All rights reserved.
 Mathematical Modeling and Experimental
Study on Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry
Ebru Kavak Akpinar and Yasar Bicer

Abstract

This paper presents mathematical modeling and the thin layer convective drying of straw-
berry. The experiments are conducted at drying air temperatures of 60, 75 and 85 deg.C in drying
air velocities of 0.5, 1 and 1.5 m/s in a convective cyclone type dryer. The data of sample mass,
temperature and velocity of the drying air were recorded continuously during each test. The ex-
perimental drying curves show only a falling drying rate period. The main factor in controlling
the drying rate was found to be the drying air temperature. Also, the experimental drying curves
obtained were fitted to eleven mathematical models. The Modified Page (I) drying model was
found to satisfactorily describe the drying curves of strawberry with a correlation coefficient (R)
of 0.98042, chi-square (2) of 0.0035 and root mean square error (RMSE) of 0.0588. The constants
and coefficients of this model could be explained by the effect of drying air temperature and ve-
locity with a correlation coefficient (R) of 0.998. The effective diffusivity coefficient of moisture
transfer varied from 4.528x10-10 to 9.631x10-10 m2/s over the temperature and velocity range in
this study.

KEYWORDS: mathematical modeling, thin layer drying, strawberry

 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

1. INTRODUCTION

Drying is the process of thermally removing volatile substances (e.g.,

moisture) to yield a solid product. Mechanical methods for separating a liquid
from a solid are not considered in thermal drying. When a wet solid is
subjected to thermal drying, two processes occur simultaneously: (i) transfer
of energy (mostly as heat) from the surrounding environment to evaporate the
surface moisture, and (ii) transfer of internal moisture to the surface of the
solid and its subsequent evaporation due to the first process (Sahin and Dincer,
2005).
Fresh strawberry is highly perishable. Freezing is an alternative to improve
the product availability, but this implies an increased cost and important losses
in product quality (Agnelli and Mascheroni, 2002; Chiralt et al., 2001; Moraga
et al., 2004). Water content reduction may be another interesting alternative to
prolong product shelf-life, such as occurs in other fruits (Moraga et al., 2004).
In this sense, the fruit may be processed to be consumed as a dried product
(powder or snack) or as a semi-moist ingredient in prepared foods that may
also be rehydrated before its final use.
The most common drying method for fruits and vegetables in the world and
Turkey is open air-sun drying. However, this drying technique has some
disadvantages like the slowness of the process, the exposure to environmental
contamination, and the hand labour requirement (Doymaz, 2005).
Furthermore, direct exposure to solar radiation results in desired colour
changes. There is also quality of the dried products may be lowered
significantly. Therefore, using solar and hot air dryers, which are far more
rapid, providing uniformity and hygiene, are inevitable for industrial food
drying processes (Doymaz and Pala, 2002; Karathanos and Belessiotis, 1997).
Recently, there have been many studies on the drying characteristic of
various vegetables, fruits and agro-based products such as hazelnut (Ozdemir
and Devres, 1999), green pepper, green bean and squash (Yaldiz and Ertekin,
2001), apricot (Togrul and Pehlivan, 2003; Sarsilmaz et al., 2000), green chilli
(Hossain and Bala, 2002), pistachio (Midilli and Kucuk, 2003), potato
(Akpinar et al., 2003a), apple (Akpinar et al., 2003; Sacilik and Elicin, 2005),
pumpkin (Akpinar et al., 2003b), red pepper (Akpinar et al., 2003), eggplant
(Ertekin and Yaldiz, 2004), carrot (Doymaz, 2004a), bay leaves (Gunhan et
al., 2005), rosehip (Erenturk et al., 2004). Some studies have been carried out
into the production of conventional air dried berry fruits such as strawberries
(Alvarez et al., 1995), blueberries (Lim et al., 1995) or mulberries (Maskan
and Gogus, 1998; Doymaz, 2004b).
The aims of the present study are, differently in the literature study,

• to study the effect of temperature and velocity on air drying kinetics of the
strawberry samples in a cyclone type dryer,
• to fit the drying curves with eleven mathematical models,
• to calculate the diffusivity coefficients of the samples.

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2. MATERIALS AND METHODS

2.1. Experimental set-up

Figure 1 illustrates the schematic diagram of the cyclone type dryer. The
system was introduced in the literature (Akpinar et al., 2003a; Akpinar et al.,
2003; Akpinar et al., 2003b). Briefly, it consists of fan, resistance and heating
control systems, air-duct, drying chamber in cyclone type, and measurement
instruments. The heating system consisted of an electric 4000 W heater placed
inside the duct. The rectangular duct included air fan and resistance was
constructed from sheet iron in 1000 mm length, 200 mm width and 250 mm
height. The drying chamber was constructed from sheet iron in 600 mm
diameter and 800 mm height cylinder. In the measurements of temperatures, J
type iron-constantan thermocouples were used with a manually controlled 20-
channel automatic digital thermometer (ELIMKO, 6400, Turkey), with
reading accuracy of ±0.1 °C. A thermo hygrometer (EXTECH, 444731,
China) was used to measure humidity levels at various locations of the system.
A 0-15 m/s range anemometer (LUTRON, AM-4201, Taiwan) measured the
velocity of air passing through the system. Moisture loss was recorded at 20
minutes intervals during drying for determination of drying curves by a digital
balance (BEL, Mark 3100, Italy) in the measurement range of 0-3100 g and an
accuracy of ±0.01 g.

Figure 1. Experimental set-up (1- Drying chamber 2- Tray 3- Digital balance 4-

Observed windows 5- Digital thermometer 6-The balance bar 7- Control panel 8-
Thermocouples 9- Digital thermometer and channel selector 10-Rheostat 11-
Resistance 12- Fan 13- Wet and dry thermometers 14- Adjustable flab 15- Duct)

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 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

2.2. Procedure

The fresh strawberry samples were used in the experiments. Before drying
process, the strawberries were washed and divided as two pieces with a
mechanical cutter, separated from leaves. Strawberry samples were dried as
thin layer with the thickness of 5 mm at temperatures of 60, 75 and 85oC in the
velocity of drying air of 0.5, 1 and 1.5 m/s. Drying of strawberry samples
started with an initial moisture content around 89.6 % (wb) and continued until
no further changes in their mass were observed, e.g. to the final moisture
content of about 10% (wb), which was then taken as the equilibrium moisture
content in the later computations.
The strawberry samples were carefully and orderly placed as 450 each g as 5
mm-distance between each slice on the trays that is made of nylon so that the
airflow could pass across the trays. The initial and final moisture contents of
the strawberry samples were determined by drying duplicate samples in an
oven at 70 °C for 72 h. After dryer is reached at steady state conditions for
operation temperatures, the samples are put on the tray and dried there.
During the experiments, ambient temperature and relative humidity, inlet
and outlet temperatures of drying air in the duct and dryer chamber were
recorded. In the calculations, the dry basis values were used. Figure 2 shows
the process flow diagram of drying, pursued in this work for strawberry
samples.

Figure 2. Flow diagram of thin layer drying process of strawberry samples

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 International Journal of Food Engineering, Vol. 2 [2006], Iss. 1, Art. 5

2.3. Experimental uncertainty

Errors and uncertainties in the experiments can arise from instrument

selection, condition, calibration, environment, observation, and reading, and
test planning. In drying experiments of the strawberry samples, the
temperatures, velocity of drying air, weight losses were measured with
appropriate instruments (Akpinar et al., 2003a; Akpinar et al., 2003; Akpinar
et al., 2003b). During the measurements of the parameters, the uncertainties
occurred were presented in Table 1.

Table 1. Uncertainties of the parameters during drying of strawberry samples

Parameter Unit Comment
Uncertainty in the temperature
measurement
Fan inlet temperature °C ±0.380-±0.576
Heaters outlet temperature °C ±0.576
Cyclone inlet temperature °C ±0.380
Cyclone outlet temperature °C ±0.380
Centre temperature of apple slices °C ±0.380
Temperature between of trays °C ±0.380
Ambient air temperature °C ±0.380
Inlet of fan with dry and wet thermometers °C ±0.559-±0.707
Uncertainty in the time measurement
Mass loss values min ±0.1
Temperature values min ±0.1
Uncertainty in the mass loss measurement g ±0.5
Uncertainty in the air velocity measurement ms-1 ±0.14
Uncertainty of the measurement of relative RH ±0.1
humidity of air
Uncertainty in the measurement of moisture g ±0.001
quantity
Uncertainty in reading values of table (ρ, % ±0.1-0.2
cp)

2.4. Mathematical modeling

Thin layer drying models that describe the drying phenomenon of agricultural
materials mainly fall into three categories, namely theoretical, semi-theoretical
and empirical (Midilli et al., 2002; Panchariya et al., 2002). The first takes into
account only internal resistance to moisture transfer while the other two
consider only external resistance to moisture transfer between product and air
(Bruce, 1985; Parti, 1993; Ozdemir and Devres, 1999). The most widely

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 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

investigated theoretical drying model has been Fick’s second law of diffusion.
Drying of many food products such as rice (Ece and Cihan, 1993) and
hazelnut (Demirtas et al., 1998) has been successfully predicted using Fick’s
second law. Semi-theoretical models offer a compromise between theory and
ease of use (Fortes and Okos, 1981). Simplifying general series solution of
second law Fick’s or modification of simplified models generally derives
semi-theoretical models. But they are only valid within the temperature,
relative humidity, and airflow velocity and moisture content range for which
they were developed. They require small time compared to theoretical thin
layer models and do not need assumptions of geometry of a typical food, its
mass diffusivity and conductivity (Parry, 1985). Among semi theoretical thin
layer drying models, the Newton model, Page model, the modified Page model
(I and II), the Henderson and Pabis model, the logarithmic model, the two-
term model, the two-term exponential, the diffusion approach model, and the
Verma et al. model are used widely. Empirical models derive a direct
relationship between average moisture content and drying time. They neglect
fundamentals of the drying process and their parameters have no physical
meaning. Therefore they cannot give clear accurate view of the important
processes occurring during drying although they may describe the drying
curve for the conditions of the experiments (Ozdemir and Devres, 1999).
Among them, the Wang and Singh model has been found application in the
literature.

2.5. The statistical modelling procedure

Moisture ratios of strawberry samples (MR) during the thin layer drying
experiments were calculated by using the following equation (Akpinar et al.,
2003).
W − We
MR = t (1)
Wi − We
For mathematical modeling, the thin layer drying equations in Table 2 were
tested to select the best model for describing the drying curve equation of
strawberry samples during drying process by the convective cyclone type
dryer. The regression analysis was performed using Statistica computer
program. The correlation coefficient (R) was primary criterion for selecting the
best equation to describe the drying curve equation. In addition to R, the
reduced χ2 as the mean square of the deviations between the experimental and
calculated values for the models and root mean square error
analysis (RMSE) were used to determine the goodness of the fit. The higher
the values of the R, and lowest values of the χ2 and RMSE, the better the
goodness of the fit (Yaldiz and Ertekin, 2001; Akpinar et al., 2003a; Akpinar
et al., 2003; Akpinar et al., 2003; Gunhan et al., 2005; Doymaz et al., 2004;
Sacilik and Elicin, 2005). These can be calculated as:

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∑ (MR )
n
− MR pre,i
2
exp ,i
i =1
χ2 = (2)
N−n
1/ 2
⎡1 N 2⎤
RMSE = ⎢ ∑ (MR pre,i − MR exp,i ) ⎥ (3)
⎣ N i =1 ⎦

The effects of some parameters related to the product or drying conditions

such as slice thickness, drying air temperature, relative humidity, etc. were
investigated by many researchers (Yaldiz and Ertekin, 2001; Ertekin and
Yaldiz, 2004; Akpinar et al., 2003a; Akpinar et al., 2003; Akpinar et al., 2003;
Togrul and Pehlivan, 2003; Gunhan et al., 2005; Simal et al., 2005a; Simal et
al., 2005b; Erenturk et al., 2004). Modeling the drying behavior of different
agricultural products often requires the statistical methods of regression and
correlation analysis. Linear and non-linear regression models are important
tools to find the relationship between different variables, especially, for which
no established empirical relationship exists. In this study, the relationships of
the constants of the best suitable model with the drying air temperature and
velocity were also determined by multiple regression technique using
Arrhenius, exponential and power regression models (Akpinar et al., 2003a;
Akpinar et al.; Akpinar et al., 2003).

Table 2. Mathematical models widely used to describe the drying kinetics

Model no Model name Model
1 Newton MR = exp(− kt)
2 Page MR = exp(−kt n )
3 Modified Page (I) [ ]
MR = exp − (kt) n
4 Modified Page (II) MR = exp[(−kt) ] n

5 Henderson and Pabis MR = a.exp(−kt)

6 Logarithmic MR = a.exp(−kt) + c
7 Two term MR = aexp(− k o t) + bexp(− k 1 t)
8 Two-term exponential MR = aexp(−kt) + (1 − a)exp(−k a t)
9 Wang and Singh MR = 1 + at + bt 2
10 Diffusion approach MR= aexp(−kt)+ (1−a)exp(−k b t)
11 Verma et al. MR = aexp(− kt) + (1 − a)exp(−g t)

3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

3.1. Drying curves

The strawberries of 8.61 g water/g dry matter average initial moisture content
were dried to 0.10 g water/g dry matter using different air temperatures (60, 75

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 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

and 85 oC) and different air velocities (0.5, 1 and 1.5 ms-1). Figure 3 presents
the variations of moisture content with drying time based on drying air
temperatures and at drying air velocities. The times to reach 0.10 g water/g dry
matter moisture content from the initial moisture content at the various drying
air temperature and velocity of the strawberry samples were found to be
between 12000 and 33600 seconds.
Moisture content (g water/g dry matter)

10
V=1.5 m/s, T=85 C
9 V=1 m/s, T=85 C
8 V=0.5 m/s, T=85 C
7 V=1.5 m/s, T=75 C
V=1m/s, T=75 C
6 V=0.5m/s, T=75 C
5 V=1.5 m/s, T=60 C
V=1 m/s, T=60 C
4 V=0.5 m/s, T=60 C
3
2
1
0
0 4800 9600 14400 19200 24000 28800 33600 38400
Drying time
Figure 3. Variation of moisture content with drying time of strawberry samples at
different temperatures and velocities

Drying rate is described as the amount of water removed (Doymaz, 2005).

Fig. 4 and Fig. 5 are shown the variation of drying rate with drying time and
moisture content, respectively, for strawberry samples during thin layer drying
on drying air temperatures of 60, 75 and 85 oC and at drying air velocities of
0.5, 1 and 1.5 ms-1. At the beginning of drying process, drying rate is higher.
Drying rate decreases continuously with decreasing moisture content or
improving drying time. In this curves, there was not constant-rate period but it
seen to occur the falling-rate period. The results indicated that diffusion is the
most likely physical mechanism governing moisture movement in the
strawberry samples. The results were generally in agreement with some
literature studies on drying of various food products (Madamba et al., 1996;
Yaldiz and Ertekin, 2001; Doymaz, 2005). As expected from Fig. 4 and Fig. 5,
increasing the air temperature and velocity increases the drying rate
(consequently decreases drying time). The experimental results showed that
the drying air temperature has a significant effect on the evolution of the
moisture content while the drying air velocity has small effect. Different
authors reported similar results on drying of fruits (Hatamipour and Mowla,
2003; Doymaz, 2005).

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0.0025

Drying rate (g water/g dry matter.s)

V=1.5 m/s, T=85 C
V=1 m/s, T=85 C
0.002 V=0.5 m/s, T=85 C
V=1.5 m/s, T=75 C
V=1m/s, T=75 C
0.0015 V=0.5m/s, T=75 C
V=1.5 m/s, T=60 C
0.001 V=1 m/s, T=60 C
V=0.5 m/s, T=60 C

0.0005

0
0 4800 9600 14400 19200 24000 28800 33600 38400
Drying time
Figure 4. Variation of drying rate with drying time of strawberry samples at different
temperatures and velocities

0.0025
Drying rate (g water/g dry matter.s)

V=1.5 m/s, T=85 C

V=1 m/s, T=85 C
0.002 V=0.5 m/s, T=85 C
V=1.5 m/s, T=75 C
V=1 m/s, T=75 C
0.0015 V=0.5 m/s, T=75 C
V=1.5 m/s, T=60 C
V=1 m/s, T=60 C
0.001 V=0.5 m/s, T=60 C

0.0005

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Moisture content (g water/g dry matter)

Figure 5. Variation of drying rate with moisture content of strawberry samples at

different temperatures and velocities

3.2. Modelling of the thin layer drying characteristics

In order to normalise the drying curves, the data involving dry basis moisture
content versus time were transformed to a dimensionless parameter called as
moisture ratio versus time (Figure 6). The moisture content data at the
different drying air temperatures and velocities were converted to the most

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 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

1.2
V=1.5 m/s, T=85 C
1 V=1 m/s, T=85 C
V=0.5 m/s, T=85 C
(Wt-We)/(Wi-We) V=1.5 m/s, T=75 C
0.8 V=1m/s, T=75 C
V=0.5m/s, T=75 C
0.6 V=1.5 m/s, T=60 C
V=1 m/s, T=60 C
0.4 V=0.5 m/s, T=60 C

0.2

0
0 4800 9600 14400 19200 24000 28800 33600 38400
Drying time

Figure 6. Variation of moisture ratio with drying time of strawberry samples at

different temperatures and velocities

useful moisture ratio expression and then curve fitting computations with the
drying time were carried on the 11 drying models evaluated by the previous
workers. The results of statistical analyses undertaken on these models are
given in Table 3. The models were evaluated based on R, χ2and RMSE
(Ertekin and Yaldiz, 2004; Gunhan et al., 2005). These curve fitting criteria
for the there models were shown in Table 1. The Modified Page (I) model was
the best descriptive model as shown in Table 3. Generally, R, χ2 and RMSE
values were varied between 0.61718-0.98042, 0.0034993-0.0562449 and

Table 3. Values of the drying constants and coefficients of mathematical models

determined through regression method for strawberry samples (Ozdemir and Devres,
1999; Midilli et al., 2002; Yaldiz and Ertekin, 2001; Akpinar et al., 2003a; Akpinar et
al., 2003b; Akpinar et al., 2003; Midilli and Kucuk, 2003; Togrul and Pehlivan, 2003;
Ertekin and Yaldiz, 2004)
Model Model constants R χ2 RMSE
no
1 k=0.000207 0.98005 0.0035413 0.0593101
2 k=0.000443; n=0.906862 0.97785 0.0039531 0.0624533
3 k=0.000204; n=1.012297 0.98042 0.0034993 0.0587594
4 k=0.014143; n=0.014143 0.98040 0.0035032 0.0587921
5 a=1.036328; k=0.000211 0.97999 0.0035746 0.0593883
6 a=0.775450; k=0.100000; 0.61718 0.0562449 0.2347766
c=0.224550
7 a=0.213314; ko=0.000057; 0.65183 0.0526078 0.2262852
b=0.213313; k1=0.000340
8 a=0.001388; k=0.143756; 0.98040 0.0035032 0.0587921
9 a=-0.000111; b=2.762x10-10 0.91746 0.0142813 0.1187053
10 a=-0.026630; k=0.018842; b=0.010897 0.97938 0.0036979 0.0601992
11 a=-0.931694; k=0.000099; g=0.000143 0.97894 0.0037855 0.0609082

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0.0587594-0.2347766, respectively. Hence, the Modified Page (I) gave better

prediction than other models, and satisfactorily described drying
characteristics of strawberry.
The fitting procedure showed that the results of the mentioned model could
be used to model the drying behaviour of examined strawberry samples, but it
did not indicate the effect of drying air temperature and velocity. To account
for the effect of the drying variables on the Modified Page model (I) constant k
(s-1) and coefficient n (dimensionless), the value of k and n were regressed
against those of drying air temperature and velocity using multiple regression
analysis. All possible combinations of the variables were tested and included
in the multiple regression analysis. The multiple combinations of the
parameters that gave the highest R-values were eventually included in the final
model.
Based on the multiple regression analysis, the accepted model constants and
coefficients were expressed in terms of the drying air temperature (T) and
velocity (V) as:

k=-0.00008781+0.0000035*T+0.000036*V
n=0.796264+0.004795*T-0.047211*V

These expressions can be used to estimate the moisture ratio of strawberry at

any time during the drying process with a high accuracy. The consistency of
the model and relationship between the coefficients and drying air temperature
and velocity is evident with R = 0.99769, χ2 = 4.28x10-4 and RMSE = 0.0205
The accuracy of the established model was evaluated by comparing the
computed moisture ratio in any particular drying conditions with the observed
moisture ratio. The performance of the model at the drying air temperatures
and velocities has been illustrated in Figure 7. The predicted data generally
banded around the straight line which showed the suitability of the Modified
Page (I) model in describing drying behaviour of strawberry.
1
0.9
0.8
0.7
Predicted values

0.6
0.5
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1
Experimental values

Figure 7. Comparison of experimental and predicted moisture ratio by the Modified

Page model (I) for different drying air conditions

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 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

3.3. Determination of the effective diffusivity coefficients

The experimental drying data for the determination of diffusivity coefficients

were interpreted by using Fick’s second diffusion model.

dW d2W
=D 2 (4)
dt dr

To solve Equation (4), the initial moisture concentration is assumed to be

uniform, and external gas phase mass transfer resistance is negligible, that is,
moisture movement is controlled by internal resistance, and outer surface
concentration is not varying in time. Under these conditions, analytical
solutions of Equation (4) for an infinite slab geometry are given in the
literature (Crank, 1975). For an infinite slab,

Wt − We 8 ∞
1 ⎡ − (2n + 1)2 π 2 Dt ⎤
MR = =
Wi − We π 2
∑
n =1 (2n + 1)
2
exp ⎢
4L2
⎥ (5)
⎣ ⎦

For sufficiently long drying times, only the 1st term of n=1 in Equation (5) can
be used with small error.
Effective moisture diffusivity was calculated by Eq. (5), using slopes derived
from the linear regression of ln (MR) vs time data shown Figure 8. It is noticed
that the drying curves have a concave form when the curves of ln (MR)-time
are analysed (Akpinar et al., 2003a; Akpinar et al., 2003; Akpinar et al.,
2003b).
V=1.5 m/s, T=85 C V=1 m/s, T=85 C V=0.5 m/s, T=85 C
V=1.5 m/s, T=75 C V=1m/s, T=75 C V=0.5m/s, T=75 C
V=1.5 m/s, T=60 C V=1 m/s, T=60 C V=0.5 m/s, T=60 C
1
0
-1 0 4800 9600 14400 19200 24000 28800 33600 38400
(In( /8)*MR)

-2
-3
-4
2

-5
-6
-7
-8
Drying time

Figure 8. Variation of ln(MR) with drying time at different temperatures and

velocities

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12

10

8
Dx10 (m /s)
2

6
10

4
T=85 C
2 T=75 C
T=60 C
0
0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2 1.4 1.6

Drying air velocity (m/s)

Figure 9. Variation of the diffusion coefficient with the velocity at the different
temperatures

Calculated values of D for different temperatures are given in Fig. 9. The D

of strawberry samples changed between 4.528*10-10-9.631*10-10 m2s-1. The
values lie within the general range of 10-11-10-9m2s-1 for food materials
(Madamba et al., 1996). It can be seen that the values of D increased greatly
with increasing drying temperature. Drying velocity had a small effect on D of
strawberry samples. Drying at 85 °C and 1.5 ms-1 gave the highest D value.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Drying kinetics of strawberry was investigated in a cyclone type dryer, a

temperature range 60-85 ºC and a velocity range 0.5-1.5 ms-1.
In order to explain the drying behavior of strawberry, eleven thin layer-
drying models were compared according to their coefficients of determination,
reduced chi-square and root mean square error values. According to the
results, the Modified Page (I) model could adequately describe the thin layer
drying behavior of strawberry. When the effect of the drying air temperature,
and velocity on the constant and coefficients of the Modified Page (I) model
were examined, the resulting model gave an R of 0.99769, χ2 of 4.28x10-4 and
RMSE of 0.0205.
The moisture transfer from the strawberry samples occurring during the
falling rate period of drying was characterized by determining experimentally
the diffusion coefficient into the air. In this study, it was noticed that diffusion
coefficients changed between 4.528 x 10-10-9.631 x 10-10 m2s-1.

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 Akpinar and Bicer: Thin Layer Drying of Strawberry

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Authors wish to thank the Firat University Research Foundation (FUNAF)

financial support, under project number 357.

NOMENCLATURE

a, b, c, g, n empirical constants in the drying models

D diffusion coefficient (m2 s-1)
k, ko, k1 empirical coefficients in the drying models (s-1)
L thickness (mm)
n number constants
N number of observations
MR moisture ratio
MRexp experimental moisture ratio
MRpre predicted moisture ratio
r diffusion path (m)
R regression coefficient
RMSE root mean square error
t time (s)
T temperature (°C)
V velocity (m s-1)
W moisture content (g water g-1dry matter), (dry basis)
We moisture content in equilibrium state (dry basis)
Wi moisture content at t = 0 (dry basis)
Wt moisture content at t (dry basis)
χ2 chi-square

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