A simple moisture transfer model for drying of sliced foods

The mathematical formulation of mass transfer in drying processes is often based on the nonlinear unsteady diffusion equation. In general, numerical simulations are required to solve these equations. Very often, however, indirect and simplified methods neglecting fundamentals of the processes are used. In this work, a new mathematical model approach for the mass transfer occurring during drying of sliced foods is proposed. The model considers fundamentals of the drying process and takes internal resistance to moisture transfer into account. The parameters in the formulation have physical meaning and permit giving clear view of the moisture depletion process occurring during drying. The proposed model has an analytical solution and allows finding effective diffusion coefficient accurately. The verification of the model is made with basic drying experiments performed for chili red peppers sliced in slab form. The results reveal that there is nearly perfect match between the drying curves obtained by the model and the experiments.