Drying kinetics of potato using a self-designed cabinet dryer

Abstract

A laboratory scale cabinet dryer was constructed with an attached weighing balance to calculate changes in the weight of the product without removing it from the dryer. Experiments were conducted to study the effect of process parameters (temperature and thickness) on the drying kinetics of potato. It was observed that the drying process was characterised by a decrease in the moisture ratio with time and showed a non-linear behaviour. No constant rate drying period in the entire process was obtained and all the drying process occurred in the falling rate period, showing that drying in this experiment was mainly controlled by diffusion mechanism. Initially, a higher drying rate was obtained followed by slower moisture removal rate. Increased drying rate and decreased drying time were observed with increase in the dryer temperature.