DRYING: PRINCIPLES AND THEORY

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 OBJECTIVES OF DRYING

• To preserve perishable raw food commodity against

deterioration or spoilage by reducing moisture content and
thus by reducing water activity.

• To reduce the cost and difficulty of packaging, handling,

transportation and storage by converting the material into
a dry solid, thus reducing its weight and in most cases
volume.

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 OBJECTIVES OF DRYING

• Drying is one of the oldest methods of preserving food.

• To preserve perishable raw food commodity against
deterioration or spoilage by reducing moisture content and
thus by reducing water activity.

• To reduce the cost and difficulty of packaging, handling,

transportation and storage by converting the material into
a dry solid, thus reducing its weight and in most cases
volume.

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• Moisture content dry basis and wet basis
• Absorbed/ Adsorbed moisture

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 Equilibrium moisture / Free moisture
Bound moisture/ Unbound moisture

Equilibrium moisture curve

1.0
Bound Unbound
moisture moisture

Equilibrium Free
moisture moisture
RH

0,0
Moisture content, %dry basis
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 BASIC DRYING THEORY
• Drying is a complex operation involving transient transfer of
heat and mass transfer.
• Sensible and latent heat must be transferred to the food to cause
the water to evaporate
• Physical changes that may occur include shrinkage, puffing,
crystallization, and glass transitions.
• In some cases, desirable or undesirable chemical or
biochemical reactions may occur, leading to changes in color,
texture, odor, or other properties of the solid product.
Typical drying rate curves: (a) drying rate versus
drying time and (b)drying rate versus water content
• Drying curve usually plots the drying rate versus drying
time or moisture contents.
• Three major stages of drying can be observed in the
drying curve.
• Transient early stage, during which the product is
heating up (transient period)
• Constant rate period, in which moisture is
comparatively easy to remove
• Falling rate period, in which moisture is bound or held
within the solid matrix
 Constant rate:
• Section B to C of the curve, known as the constant rate periods,
represents removal of unbound water from the product.
• The surface of the product is very wet and the water activity is
equal to one.
• In the constant-rate period, the water is being evaporated
effectively as a free water surface.
• The rate of removal of water can then be related to the rate of heat
transfer, if there is no change in the temperature of the material and
therefore all heat energy transferred to it must result in evaporation
of water.
 Falling rate:
• The falling rate period (from point C) is reached when the
drying rate starts to decrease, and the surface water activity falls
to less than one.

• At this point there is not enough water on the surface to

maintain a water activity value of one.

• The rate of drying is governed by the internal flow of liquid or

vapor.

• The falling rate period can be divided into two steps.

 First falling drying rate (C to D)
 Second falling drying rate ( D to E)
 Falling rate:
• A first falling drying rate occurs when wetted spots in the
surface continually diminish until the surface is dried (Point D).

• Second falling rate period begins at point D when the surface is

completely dry and until the EMC is reached.
Transport of moisture within the solid may occur by any one or
more of the
following mechanisms of mass transfer:
 Capillary flow
 Liquid diffusion, if the wet solid is at a temperature below the
boiling point of the liquid
 Vapor diffusion, if the liquid vaporizes within material
 Knudsen diffusion, if drying takes place at very low
temperatures and pressures, e.g., in freeze drying
 Surface diffusion (possible although not proven)
 Thermal diffusion
 Hydrostatic pressure differences, when internal vaporization
rates exceed the rate of vapor transport through the solid to the
surroundings
• Combinations of the above mechanisms
 40°C

60°C

Equilibrium relative humidity, %

Equilibrium moisture curve at two temperatures

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 Water activity

Water activity is defined as the chemical potential of the

water present in a food- its ability to participate in chemical
reactions. It is denoted as aw.

Ice at 0, -10, -20 and -50°C have the water activities of 1.00,
0.91, 0.82 and 0.62, respectively.
Remember that all of them have 100% moisture.

Mathematically, water activity is given as the ratio of the

vapour pressure of water in a solution (ps) to the vapour
pressure of pure water (pw).

aw = ps/pw

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 Water activity
Various parameters affecting water activity
Temperature,
pH,
Oxygen and CO2 in the system
Chemical preservatives added to the commodity

To inhibit most of the bacteria : aw < 0.9

To inhibit most of the yeasts : aw < 0.8
To inhibit most of the fungi : aw < 0.7
To inhibit most of the microorganisms: aw < 0.6.
To avoid other deteriorative reactions, aw < 0.3.

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 Water activity

Norrish equation (for aw at high moisture contents)

aw
log   k (1  x w ) 2
xw
where,
xw = mole fraction of water in the food / solution.

The values of constant k for various solutes in Norrish’s eqn

for water activity of solutions have been found out. For
example
ksucrose = 2.7 and kglucose/ fructose/ invertase = 0.7

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 Water activity

Brunauer-Emmett-Teller (BET) equation (For water activity

at low moisture contents, aw between 0 to 0.45 or so) :
aw 1 C 1
  aw
M 1  a w  M1C M1C
where,
M is the moisture of the commodity (per cent dry basis),

M1 is the moisture (per cent dry basis) of a monomolecular

layer (moisture content at which the water molecules coat
the surface of the solid particles in a mono-molecular layer),

C is a constant (temperature dependent and related to heat

of adsorption).
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Thank You

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