Physical Properties in Drying of Food Products with Combined Sublimation and Evaporation

摘要

Drying is an important unit operation in processing of biological resources. The drying process may influence the product properties and quality, which may shrink, break or undergo rheological, physical and biochemical changes. The important parameters responsible for such changes are drying conditions, type of drying technology and residence drying time. Thermal conductivity, thermal-mass diffusivity, enthalpy, porosity and density are the main material property and heat-mass transfer parameters, which are essential for understanding the changes in product quality and for designing and dimensioning the drying processes. In this paper physical properties of food products undergoing a combined sublimation and evaporation were studied. Pieces of vegetables and potatoes were dried in a heat pump fluidized bed dryer at combined modes with temperatures below the freezing point in the beginning and a final drying step at temperatures above the freezing point. Samples of products were tested at different moisture contents with respect to physical properties. Physical properties of leek and potato samples were measured and mass diffusivities were determined from drying kinetic data. Based on bulk density and rehydration measurements it was clearly observed that drying temperature and modes influenced the final product physical properties. The potato cube run dried with initial atmospheric freeze-drying step had rehydration ability 430%above a run dried only above the freezing point. The average effective mass diffusivity for 5 mm slabs of leek was 0.5 x 10-11m2·s-1 for the sublimation stage and 2.2 x 10-11m2·s-1 for the evaporation stage.