Modeling of hot air drying of coconut residue

Abstract

In this study, the effect of drying temperature (50-110°C) on hot air drying characteristics of coconut residue was investigated. The drying time and drying rate (DR) were in the ranges of 540-100 min and 0.0048-0.0182 g water/g dry matter·min at the drying temperature of 50-110°C, respectively. Six drying models (Lewis, Page, Henderson and Pabis, Logarithmic, Midilli et al, and linear-plus-exponential model) were used to determine the change in moisture ratio (MR) with drying time. The linear-plus-exponential model provided best fitting of the predicted MR to the experimental MR with the highest average R2 of 0.9985 and the lowest RMSE of 0.01463. The variation of drying temperature with the constants and coefficient of the model was polynomial type. The generalized linear-plus-exponential model as a function of drying temperature gave best result of prediction of MR with the R2 of 0.9709.