%0 Journal Article
%T Effective Moisture Diffusivity and Activation Energy of Tomato in Thin Layer Dryer during Hot Air Drying
%A Amin Taheri-Garavand
%A Shahin Rafiee
%A Alireza Keyhani
%J International Transaction Journal of Engineering, Management, & Applied Sciences & Technologies
%D 2011
%I 
%X The aim of this paper is to report tomato slice moisture diffusivity data determined and activation energy from experimental drying kinetics. The thin-layer drying experiments were carried out under five air temperatures of 40, 50, 60, 70 and 80oC, two air velocity 1.5, and 2 m/s and three level of relative humidity 20, 40 and 60%. It was observed that drying took place in the falling rate period. Moisture transfer from tomato slice was described by applying the Fick¡¯s diffusion model. The effective diffusivity values changed from 9.9119¡Á10^-10 to 6.4037¡Á10^-9 m^2/s for the range of temperatures considered. An Arrhenius relation with an activation energy value of 33.3299 to 43.2287 kJ/mol and the diffusivity constant value of 1.7695¡Á10^-4 to 3.09156¡Á10^-2 m^2/s were obtained which shows the effect of drying air temperature, air velocity and relative humidity on the diffusivity.
%K Drying
%K Fick¡¯s model
%K Activation energy
%K Tomato
%K Relative humidity
%U http://tuengr.com/V02/239-248.pdf