Estimation of the Moisture Diffusivity in Thin Layer Drying of Armoracia Slices

Armoracia rusticana is cultivated mainly for its roots that are used in the human diet as a pungent spice. The roots represent rich sources of biologically active phytocompounds, which are beneficial for humans. In the present work, the effective moisture diffusivity was calculated using an infinite series solution of Fick’s diffusion equation. It was observed that increasing drying temperature and increasing sample size increases effective moisture diffusion. All drying experiments had only falling rate period. The highest values of effective moisture diffusion were 2.966×10-10 m2/s obtained with sample size of 1×3 cm at air temperature of 80 °C. While the lowest values were 0.345×10-10 m2/s for the control samples with sample size of 1×1 cm at 60 °C temperature.

Estimation of the Moisture Diffusivity in Thin Layer Drying of Armoracia Slices Keywords:

Armoracia , Drying , Moisture diffusivity , sample size