International Journal of Agriculture and Crop Sciences. Available online at www.ijagcs.

com IJACS/2013/5-18/2009-2018 ISSN 2227-670X 2013 IJACS Journal

Effect of Shape Potato Chips on Drying Characteristics

Hosain Darvishi1*; Hamid Khafajeh2; Ahmad Banakar3; Mehdi lofti4
1. Department of Mechanics of Agricultural Machinery, Faculty of Agriculture; University of Kurdistan, Sanandaj; Iran; 2. Department of Mechanical Engineering; ABA Institute of Higher Education, Iran 3. Department of Agricultural Machinery Mechanical Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran 4. Department of Computer Engineering, Islamabad-e Gharb Branch, Islamic Azad University, Islamabad Gharb, Iran Corresponding author email: hosaindarvishi@gmail.com ABSTRACT: In this study, the effect of microwave power and shape of samples on moisture ratio, drying rate, effective moisture diffusivity, energy efficiency and energy consumption of potato were investigated. The drying experiments were carried out at 200, 300 and 400 W, and rectangular (S 2) and cylindrical (S1) shapes with dimensions of 110.5 mm, 50.5 mm, respectively. Moisture loss values were compared with predicted values obtained from Pages thin layer drying semi -empirical equation. The results showed that power and shape samples significantly influenced the total drying time, effective diffusivity, energy efficiency and energy requirement for drying. As the drying progressed, the loss of moisture in the product caused a decrease in the absorption of microwave power and resulted in a fall in the drying rate. The effective moisture diffusivity increased with decrease in moisture content of potato samples. A third order polynomial relationship existed between effective moisture diffusivity and the moisture content of potato samples. The average effective diffusivity varied from 2.33108 to 7.60108 m2/s for S2 and from 1.39108 to 3.17108 m2/s for S1 in the microwave power range from 200 to 400 W. The activation energy was calculated using an exponential expression based on Arrhenius equation and it was determined to be 31.50 and 16.44 W/g for S1 and S2, respectively. Energy efficiency increased with increase in microwave power and moisture content. The minimum specific energy requirement for drying of potatoes was determined as 4.24 and 5.70 MJ/kg water for S1 and S2, respectively, at power of 400 W. Keywords: Drying, Modeling, Shape sample, Moisture diffusivity, Energy consumption, Potato INTRODUCTION Food drying is a traditional method of food preservation, which is also used for the production of special foods and food ingredients. Different drying methods such as, hot-air drying, vacuum drying, sun-drying and freeze drying are used in the drying of fruits and vegetables. Hot-air drying is the most common method in the drying of foodstuffs. However, this method has disadvantages like inability to handle the large quantities and to achieve consistent quality standards, contamination problems, low drying rate, long drying duration, low energy efficiency and high costs which are not a desirable situation for food industry (Alibas, 2007; Ozbek and Dadali, 2007). The drying time of the convective technique can be shortened by using higher temperatures which increase moisture diffusivity and by cutting the material into small pieces. Increased drying temperature entails higher costs and may cause biochemical changes that degrade the dried product quality; whereas subdividing the material is an additional process that results, especially under industrial conditions, in mass losses and lowering of the product quality. In general, energy efficiency in drying is closely related to drying times. Compared to hot air drying, microwave or hybrid microwave drying techniques can greatly reduce the drying time of biological materials

Intl J Agri Crop Sci. Vol., 5 (18), 2009-2018, 2013 without quality degradation (Alibas, 2007; Wang et al., 2007; Vadivambal and Jayas, 2007). Microwaves are electromagnetic waves within the range of radio frequencies from 300 MHz to 300GHz. Electromagnetic energy at 915 and 2450 MHz can be absorbed by water containing materials and is converted to heat. It has also been suggested that microwave energy should be applied in the falling rate period or at low moisture content for finish drying (Wang et al., 2007; Vadivambal and Jayas, 2007). Microwave may be advantageous in the last stages of air drying. Because low efficient portion of a conventional drying system is near the end, two-thirds of the time may be spent, the last one-third of the moisture content. The diffusion coefficient of a food is material property and its value depends upon the conditions within the material. Effective moisture diffusivity describes all possible mechanisms of moisture movement within the foods, such as liquid diffusion, vapour diffusion, surface diffusion, capillary flow and hydrodynamic flow. A knowledge of effective moisture diffusivity is necessary for designing and modeling mass-transfer processes such as dehydration, adsorption and desorption of moisture during storage. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the effect of microwave output power on the drying kinetic of potato samples, to determine the optimum drying power with respect to energy consumption, to calculate the energy efficiency, activation energy, effective moisture diffusivity and to derive a relationship between the moisture content and the effective moisture diffusivity. MATERIALS AND METHODS Potato samples were procured from local vegetable market in Tehran, Iran. The samples were stored at 40.5 C before they were used in experiments. Potatoes were washed under running water to remove the adhering impurities, and cut into rectangular (S2) and cylindrical (S1) shape with dimensions of 110.5 mm, 50.5 mm, respectively, using a sharp stainless steel knife. Immediately after cutting, potatoes were immersed in a sodium meta-bi-sulphite solution (0.1% w/w) for 15 min to prevent browning during drying (Bakal et al., 2011). After that, cut potatoes were drained on a mesh tray and kept in a cold room at 4 C for 24 h to equilibrate the moisture content. The average initial moisture content of the samples were found to be 721% wet basis, as determined by using convective oven at 105 C for 24h. A domestic microwave oven (M945, Samsung Electronics Ins) with maximum output of 1000 W at 2450MHz was used for the drying experiments. The oven has a fan for air flow in drying chamber and cooling of magnetron. The moisture from drying chamber was removed with this fan by passing it through the openings on the right side of the oven wall to the outer atmosphere. The microwave dryer was operated by a control terminal which could control both microwave power level and emission time. Experiments were performed at four microwave powers of 200, 300 and 400 W. The moisture losses of samples were recorded at 30s intervals during the drying process by a digital balance (GF-600, A & D, Japan) and an accuracy of 0.001 g. For measuring the weight of the sample during experimentation, the tray with sample was taken out of the drying chamber, weighed on the digital top pan balance and placed back into the chamber. Drying was carried out until the final moisture content reaches to a level less than 5% (w.b.). All measurements were carried out in triplicate. The moisture ratio of potato samples during the thin layer drying experiments was calculated using the following equation:

where MR is the moisture ratio (dimensionless), Xt is the moisture content at drying time t (d.b.) and X0 is the initial moisture content (d.b.). The values of Xe, are relatively small compared to Xt or X0. Thus, Eq. (1) can be reduced to MR=Xt/X0. The drying rate of samples was calculated by using Eq. (2): where Xt+t is moisture content at time t+t (% d.b.), t is the time (min) and DR is the drying rate (d.b./min). The Pages model is an empirical modification of the simple exponential model to overcome its shortcomings. It was successfully used to describe the drying characteristics of a variety of biological materials. Therefore, the semi-empirical Pages equation (Eq. (3)) was used to describe the thin layer drying kinetics of samples:

where k is the drying constant (1/min); and n is the dimensionless exponent. Statistical test using the 2 2 coefficient of determination (R ), reduced chi-square ( ) and root mean square error (RMSE) were calculated

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Intl J Agri Crop Sci. Vol., 5 (18), 2009-2018, 2013 to evaluate the goodness of fit of each model. The reduced and RMSE were calculated according to the following equation:
2

where MRexp is the experimental dimensionless moisture ratio, MRpre is the predicted dimensionless moisture ratio by Page model, N is the number of experimental data points, and z is the number of parameters in model. The model is said to be good if R2 value is high and, 2 and RMSE values are low. Ficks second equation of diffusion was used to calculate the effective diffusivity, considering a constant moisture diffusivity, infinite slab geometry and uniform initial moisture distribution:

where Deff is the effective diffusivity (m2/s), and L is the thickness (here half) of slab (m). The Eq. (6) can be simplified by taking the first term of Eq. (7):

Eq. (7) is evaluated numerically for Fourier number, F0= Defft/4L2, for diffusion and can be rewritten as Eq. (8) can be rewritten as:

Thus: The effective moisture diffusivity was calculated using Eq. (10) as:

The average effective diffusivity was also typically calculated by using the slope of Eq. (11). A straight line with a slope of K was obtained when ln(MR) was plotted versus time:

Inasmuch as temperature is not precisely measurable inside the microwave drier, the activation energy is found as modified from the revised Arehnious equation. In a first method it is assumed as related to drying kinetic constant rate (k) and the ratio of sample weight to microwave output power (m/P) instead of to air temperature. Then Eq. (13) can be effectively used as follow (Ozbek and Dadali, 2007):

In the second method, the correlation between the effective diffusion coefficient and (m/P) is used for calculation of the activation energy.

where k is the drying rate constant obtained by using best model (1/min), k 0 is the pre-exponential constant (1/min), Ea is the activation energy (W/g), m is the mass of raw sample (g), and D0 is the pre-exponential factor (m2/s). The energy consumption of microwave could be calculated as follows: The specific energy consumption is calculated using Eq. (16) (Motevali et al., 2011).

where Es is the specific energy consumption (J/ kg water); P is the microwave power (W); and m w is the total

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Intl J Agri Crop Sci. Vol., 5 (18), 2009-2018, 2013 mass of evaporated water (kg). The microwave drying efficiency was calculated as the ratio of heat energy utilized for evaporating water from the sample to the heat supplied by the dryer (Soysal et al., 2006). where is the microwave-convective drying efficiency (%); m w is the mass of evaporated water at any time (kg), and w is the latent heat of vaporization of water (J/kg). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The changes in moisture ratio with drying time of potato samples at different shapes in microwave drying are presented in Fig. 1. It was found that the moisture content is affected by the power and shape and drying time of the potato samples was significantly reduced from 5.5 to 2.75 min, 7 to 4.75 min, and 9.5 to 6.25 min for 400, 300 and 200W, as the potato shape sample changed from S2 to S1 as can be seen in Fig. 1. It is also clear from the same potato shape that, increasing the power resulted in shortened drying times up to 56% and 42% for shapes of S1 and S2, respectively.
1.0 0.9 0.8 0.7
Moisture ratio (%)

S(2)-400W S(2)-300W S(2)-200W S(1)-400W S(1)-300W S(1)-200W

0.6 0.5 0.4 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Drying tim e (m in) 7 8 9 10

Figure 1. Variation of moisture ratio with drying time for the potato samples at different powers and shapes

Figure 2 shows the changes in drying rate as a function of drying time at the different powers and shapes. It is clear that the moisture content and drying rate decrease continuously with drying time. The drying rate was rapid during the initial period but it became very slow at the last stages during the drying process. The moisture content of the material was very high during the initial phase of the drying which resulted in a higher absorption of microwave power and higher drying rates due to the higher moisture diffusion. As the drying progressed, the loss of moisture in the product caused a decrease in the absorption of microwave power and resulted in a fall in the drying rate. Constant drying rate period was not observed during the drying of potato samples. This shows that diffusion in dominant physical mechanism governing moisture movement in the samples. Also, Fig. 2 shows the drying rate of S1 is largest of S2. Table 1 shows averages of drying constants k and n of Pages model and coefficients of determination (R2), reduced chi-square (2) and root mean square error (RMSE) for different powers and shapes. Power and shape affected the drying rate constant (k, Page mode). The drying constant in Pages model increased with increase in drying power for each shape. As could be expected, the rate constant term k increased resulting in higher drying rate.

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2.2 2.0 1.8

Drying rate (%d.b/min)

S(2)-400W S(2)-200W S(1)-300W

S(2)-300W S(1)-400W S(1)-200W

1.6 1.4 1.2 1.0 0.8 0.6 0.4 0.2 0.0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6

10

Drying tim e (m in)

Figure 2. Variation of drying rate with time for the potato samples at different powers and shapes Table 1. Results of statistical analysis on the modeling (Pages model) of moisture content and drying time for potato samples
P (W) 200 300 400 200 300 400 k 0.097 0.228 0.492 0.105 0.14 0.255 n 1.917 2.083 2.07 1.431 1.675 1.564 S1 2 R 0.995 0.998 0.997 S2 0.996 0.999 0.998 X 0.00066 0.00039 0.00045 0.00041 0.00013 0.00018
2

RMSE 0.02008 0.01558 0.01944 0.01976 0.01102 0.01299

To account the effect of the microwave power on the Pages model, the constants k and n were regressed against those of drying microwave powers using regression analysis. Based on the regression analysis, the accepted model and their constants are as follows: For S1:

For S2:

Fig. 3 shows the comparison between experimental moisture ratio at different shapes and drying powers and that predicted by the Page model. As can be seen, the dots in Fig. 3 are closely banding around at a 45 straight line a very good agreement between calculated and experimental data, which indicates that the Page model could adequately describe the drying behavior of potato samples.

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1.0

0.8
Predicted moisture ratio

0.6

0.4

S(1)-200W S(1)-400W

S(1)-300W S(2)-200W S(2)-400W

0.2

S(2)-300W

0.0 0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 Experim ental m oisture ratio 0.8 1.0

Figure 3. Experimental and predicted moisture ratio values at different shapes and microwave powers for the Page model
7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 Moisture content (d.b.) 2.5 3.0 400W-S(1) 200W-S(1) 300W-S(2) 300W-S(1) 400W-S(2) 200W-S(2)

Figure4. Variation in effective moisture diffusivity with moisture content at different microwave powers

Variation in effective moisture diffusivity of samples with moisture content at different microwave power levels is shown in Fig. 4. The effective moisture diffusivity increased with decrease in moisture content. However, the moisture diffusivity further was higher at any level of moisture content at higher microwave power level, resulting into shorter drying time. This may indicate that as moisture content decreased, the permeability to vapour increased, provided the pore structure remained open. The temperature of the product rises rapidly in the initial stages of drying, due to more absorption of microwave heat, as the product has a high loss factor at higher moisture content. This increases the water vapour pressure inside the pores and results in pressure induced opening of pores. In the first stage of drying, liquid diffusion of moisture could be the main mechanism of moisture transport. As drying progressed further, vapour diffusion could have been the dominant mode of moisture diffusion in the latter part of drying. Sharma and Prasad (2004); Sharma et al. (2005) also reported similar trend in the variation in the moisture diffusivity with moisture content.

Effective diffusivity10^8 (m/s)

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Intl J Agri Crop Sci. Vol., 5 (18), 2009-2018, 2013 A third order polynomial relationship was found to correlate the effective moisture diffusivity with corresponding moisture content of potato samples and is given by Eq. (22) where A, B, C, D is the constants of regression, and X is moisture content (d.b.) Regression constants for microwave drying of potato samples under different powers are presented in Table 2 2. The high values of R are indicative of good fitness of empirical relationship to represent the variation in effective moisture diffusivity with moisture content of potato samples.
Table 2. Regression coefficients of effective moisture diffusivity for different microwave powers and shapes of samples
P(W) 400 300 200 400 300 200 A 6.689 5.391 2.642 3.3432 2.2483 1.5336 B S1 -7.1835 -8.1271 -2.5898 S2 -3.8350 -4.1542 -1.9035 C 3.8165 5.3873 1.2898 2.4365 4.7468 1.3885 D -0.7573 -1.2146 -0.2447 -0.5639 -2.3227 -0.3965 R
2

0.9929 0.9703 0.9919 0.9676 0.9975 0.9931

The variation in ln (MR) and drying time (t) for different powers have been plotted in Fig. 5 to obtain the slope K (Eq. (12)) which can give the average effective moisture diffusivity (Deff). The values of effective moisture diffusivity were calculated using Eq. (12) and are shown in Table 3. It was noted that Deff values increased greatly with increasing drying microwave power. When samples were dried at higher microwave power, increased heating energy would increase the activity of water molecules leading to higher moisture diffusivity. Shape and power had significant (P0.05) effect on moisture diffusivity. The values ranged from 2.33108 to 7.60108 m2/s for S2 and from 1.39 108 to 3.17108 m2/s for S1 in the microwave power range from 200 to 400 W. In The values lie within the general range of 10-910-11 m2/s for food materials (Sacilik et al., 2006; Arslan and Ozcan, 2010; Kumar et al., 2011). It can be seen that the values of Deff increased with increasing microwave power. This might be explained by the increased heating energy, which would increase the activity of the water molecules leading to higher moisture diffusivity when samples were dried at higher microwave power.
Drying tim e (m in) 4 5 6

0 0 -1 -2 -3
ln(MR)

10

-4 -5 -6 -7 -8 -9 ln(MR) = -0.7511x + 0.5337 R2 = 0.9329 ln(MR) = -0.5538x + 0.5288 R2 = 0.9535 ln(MR) = -0.33x + 0.3994 R2 = 0.9188 ln(MR) = -0.5521x + 0.5446 R2 = 0.8572 S(2)-400W S(2)-200W S(1)-300W S(2)-300W S(1)-400W S(1)-200W

ln(MR) = -1.8003x + 0.8886 R2 = 0.8586 ln(MR) = -1.2664x + 0.9375 R2 = 0.8629

Figure 5. Variation in ln (MR) and drying time for two potato samples dried at different microwave powers

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Table 3. Values of effective diffusivity obtained for samples at different powers and at two shapes
P(W) 200 300 400 Average effective diffusivity (m /s) S1 S2 -8 -8 2.3310 1.3910 -8 -8 5.8310 2.3410 -8 -8 7.6010 3.1710
2

Similar results are found to correspond well with those existing in the literature, such as 5.612109 to 8 2 -6 -6 2 1.31710 m /s for fluidized bed drying of potatoes (Bakal et al., 2011), 4.60610 to 7.06510 m /s freeze7 7 2 drying of sweet potato cubes with far-infrared (Lin et al., 2005), 3.17 10 to 15.45 10 m /s for thin-layer -8 -8 drying of potato slices in length of continuous band dryer (Aghbashlo et al., 2009), and 2.9010 to 4.8810 2 -8 -8 2 -8 -8 2 m /s,7.0410 to 24.2210 m /s, and 3.1510 to 5.36 10 m /s for convective, microwave and combined drying of potato cylinders, respectively (McMinn et al., 2003). The differences between the results can be explained by effect of drying methods, types, composition, and tissue characteristics of the potatoes and the proposed model used for calculation. Activation energy can be calculated from the (k-m/P) curve (Fig.6) and Eq. (13). Then, the dependence of the drying rate constant (Page model) of potato samples on the microwave power can be represented by the following equations: For S1: For S2: The activation energy values were estimated as 31.50 and 16.44 W/g for S1 and S2, respectively.
0.6 S(1) S(2)

0.5

0.4
k (1/min)

k = 2.1554e -31.499m/P R2 = 0.9747 k = 0.5094e -16.444m/P R2 = 0.8552

0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0 0.04

0.05

0.06

0.07 0.08 m /P (g/W)

0.09

0.1

0.11

Figure 6. Variation of drying rate constant with sample weight/microwave operating power for potato samples

CONCLUSION The effects of microwave power and shape samples on potato drying process were presented. The drying of potato samples occurred in the falling rate period. The experimental moisture loss data were fitted to the Pages thin layer drying model. A third order polynomial relationship was found to correlate the effective moisture diffusivity (Deff) with moisture content. The effective moisture diffusivity increased with decrease in moisture content of potato samples. Within the range of microwave power values, 200400 W, effective moisture 8 8 2 8 2 diffusivities were found to be 2.3310 - 7.6010 m /s for S2 and from 1.39108 - 3.1710 m /s for S1.

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Intl J Agri Crop Sci. Vol., 5 (18), 2009-2018, 2013 The activation energy was calculated using an exponential expression based on Arrhenius equation. The increase in microwave power increased resulted in a considerable increase in drying efficiency and a significant decrease in specific energy consumption. The optimum microwave power level was 400 W, at which the specific energy consumption was 4.24 MJ/kg water for S1 and 5.70 MJ/kg water for S 2 with a drying period of 2.75 and 5.5 min, respectively.
9.E-08 8.E-08
Effective diffusivity (m/s)

S(1)

S(2)

7.E-08 6.E-08 5.E-08 4.E-08 3.E-08 2.E-08 1.E-08 0.E+00 0.04 Def f = 7E-08e -16.318m/P R2 = 0.9983 Def f = 3E-07e -24.193m/P R2 = 0.9861

0.05

0.06

0.07 0.08 m /P (g/W)

0.09

0.1

0.11

Figure 7. Relationship between Deff and sample weight/microwave operating power for potato

Another method for calculation of activation energy is the calculation of the coefficients for Eq. (14) from (D eff) versus (m/P) curve (Fig.7). Eqs. (25 and 26) show the effect of power on Deff of samples with the following coefficients: For S1: For S2: The values of Ea for S1 and S2 samples found 24.193 and 16.316 W/g, respectively. The variation of microwave energy efficiency with drying time is shown in Fig. 8. The microwave energy efficiency was very high during the initial phase of the drying which resulted in a higher absorption of microwave power and higher drying rates due to the higher moisture diffusion. Following moisture reduction, the energy absorbed by the product decreased and reflected power increased (Soysal et al., 2006; Mousa and Farid, 2002; Araszkiewicz et al., 2004). For this reason, it was observed that as the microwave power increased the energy losses increased, in other words microwave energy efficiency values decreased. Similar trends were also observed by Soysal et al. (2006) for microwave drying of parsley. The best result with regard to microwave energy efficiency was obtained from 300W microwave power levels among all microwave power.
Table 3. Specific energy consumption during the drying of potato samples at different microwave powers
P(W) 200 300 400 S1 4.78 5.75 4.25 Energy consumption (MJ/kg water) S2 5.70 7.23 5.83

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100 90 80
Drying efficiency (%)

S(2)-400W S(2)-200W S(1)-300W

S(2)-300W S(1)-400W S(1)-200W

70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 Drying tim e (m in)

10

Figure 8. Variation of drying efficiency with time for the potato samples at different powers and shapes

Table 4 show values of specific energy consumption for drying of green pepper at different microwave powers. The specific energy consumption values varied between 4.24 to 5.75 MJ/kg water and 5.70 to 7.23 MJ/kg water for S1 and S2, respectively. The maximum specific energy consumption obtained at microwave power of 300W for each potato samples. Besides, the energy consumption is decreasing with increasing drying microwave power at 300 to 400W. One of many reasons might be that the drying time is longer under microwave power level of 300W, hence results in an increase in energy consumption. REFERENCES
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