DRYING KINETICS OF APRICOTS

The kinetics of apricot dehydration was examined using a factorial experimental design in order to evalute the effect of air temperature, air velocity and pretreatment of the sample on the drying time and the transport coefficients of apricots. A finite element method was used to solve the differential equations describing the transfer of moisture in the irregular shape of the apricot. The two transport coefficients of the system were estimated using non-linear regression analysis. It was found that the moisture transfer is entirely controlled by the external resistance to mass transfer for the air velocities examined. A new method is proposed for the evaluation of the relative significance of the external and the internal mass transfer during, which should repiace the well known Biot number criterion.