Determination of the drying characteristics of taro (Colocasia esculenta) leaves

Date

4-2012

Degree

Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Engineering

Major Course

Major in Agricultural and Bio-Process Engineering

College

College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (CEAT)

Adviser/Committee Chair

Arnold R. Elepaño

Abstract

This study determined the drying characteristic of gabi leaves with air temperature, volumetric flow rate, and layer thickness as independent parameters. The response variables considered were final moisture content, average drying rate, dorsal hue, ventral hue, dorsal chroma, ventral chroma, aroma , texture, and overall acceptability. Using the Box and Behnken experimental design, it resulted to 15 runs of drying. Three conditions were used by each parameters which were 50ºC, 60ºC, and 70ºC for air temperature 0.041m³/s, 0.047m³/s, and 0.053m³/s for volumetric flow rate and 3mm, 5mm, and 7mm for layer thickness. The response surface regression (RSREG) procedure under Statistical Analysis System (SAS) was used top determine the responses affected by the independent parameters. It indicated that average drying rate was affected significantly by air temperature and layer thickness since high temperature increases capacity of moisture and thicker layer lengthens distance of water travel from center to surface. The data analysis also indicated that texture was affected by volumetric flow rate and layer thickness. Increasing the amount of air creates pressure around the sample, thus, slowing down water movement causing longer heat exposure of the samples which causes destruction of leaf surface components making the texture rough. Statistica 7 was used to determine optimum drying conditions. The conditions were 70ºC temperature, 0.053m³/s volumetric flow rate, and 5mm layer thickness. With R² of 0.9988 and SD of 0.0169, exponential model gave the best results for the drying of gabi leaves. The drying is described as: Mt-Me/Mo-Me=exp(-0.030205)t)

Language

English

Location

UPLB College of Engineering and Agro-Industrial Technology (CEAT)

Call Number

LG 993.5 2012 A2/ R34

Document Type

Thesis

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