A numerical solution to simultaneous heat and mass transfer of convective drying of food

Abstract

Typical theoretical method to solve simultaneous heat and mass transfer on surface area of drying of food can be divided into two different approaches, they are analytical method and numerical method. In the numerical method the water activity parameter is needed. The water activity is an individual parameter of each food and determines how strong the connections between food structure and water are. This parameter is developed by using experimental data. In this work, a simple numerical method which is coupled with water activity is proposed. A numerical method has been developed to solve one-dimensional governing equations. The method has been tested in convective drying of mango slice. The result reveals that experimental and numerical result show good agreement. The drying characteristics, effect of temperature and velocity of drying air are explored. The main conclusion can be drawn here is that the proposed method can be used to solve simultaneous heat and mass transfer problem in food drying.