Drying behaviour of hazelnuts
1998
Demirtas, C. | Ayhan, T. | Kaygusuz, K.
A diffusion-based drying model has been used to model the single-layer drying of whole hazelnuts (hull, air-gap and kernel). The drying of whole hazelnut was simulated by means of the numerical solution of Fick's second law for a composite solid consisting of an air gap which is between two solid bodies. The Crank-Nicholson implicit numerical method has been applied to solve the diffusion equation with variable mass diffusivity for whole hazelnut. The numerical data so obtained has been presented in the form of a series of curves which represent the drying characteristics of a whole hazelnut. Experimental results from whole hazelnuts were correlated with the theoretical results. A correlation describing the diffusivity of the whole hazelnut with moisture content and temperature was established, when the expression of diffusivity for hazelnut was used. Predicting the drying behaviour of the hazelnut for a known value of initial moisture content, equilibrium moisture and equivalent radius, a good agreement was obtained between the experimental data and prediction. Whole hazelnut diffusivity was determined at 25-45 degrees C, air velocity 0.2-0.3 ms-1, 60% relative humidity of air, using the theoretical curves that best fit the data. The diffusivity of whole hazelnut was determined as a function of drying air temperature and velocity.
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