ENVIRONMENT-CONTROLLED DRYING OF CUT-ROSELLE: ANALYSIS OF DRYING-PARAMETERS & VALIDATION OF MODIFIED-PAGE II

ABSTRACT

This Part II, of the research on the controlled-environment drying of Cut-Roselle, aimed to inspect the effects of varying drying-conditions on the drying-rate and drying-constant, and to assess, evaluate, and verify the Modified-Page II model’s performance. The study is carried-out in a chamber with controlled humidity, airspeed, and temperature. Where, different relative-humidity and temperatures are applied. The analysis of thin-layer drying-models revealed that the Modified-Page II model provided the most accurate fit, out of the 12 models. The average values obtained for the drying-constant (k), the model-coefficients (n) and (L) are, respectively, 0.00343, 0.99219, and -0.87306. The precision of the developed model is validated through two approaches: comparing the predicted-moisture contents with the actual moisture-data and examining the residuals in relation to the predicted-moisture contents. The findings indicated that the Modified-Page II model successfully, characterized the drying-performance of the Cut-Roselle.