Kinetics of Fluidized Bed Drying of Potato

Hot air drying is commonly used practice for the drying of potato. Information is scanty on its drying kinetics with respect to shape and size. Placing the above view forth, this research work on effect of shapes on drying kinetics of fluidized bed drying of potato was undertaken.The potatoes were peeled and cut in to aspect ratio1:1,1:2 & 1:3 for cuboidal shape & for cylindrical shape, cut to D:L ratio 1:1, 1:2 & 1:3.The effect shape and air drying temperature was studied.It was inferred from the study that drying time was reduced as temperature increased for both the aspect ratio and D:L ratio.Effective moisture diffusivity increased as the aspect ratio and D:L ratio increased.As temperature increased, effective moisture diffusivity also increased. Drying constant value in Exponential and Page model were calculated using Marquardt method of non-linear regression procedure in SY-STAT(12.0)which showed that the drying constant "k" decreased as aspect ratio and D:L ratio increased. Page model gave better fit than Exponential model. Energy activation from diffusivity data were found close to the energy activation from drying data.