Mathematical modelling of solar drying of unprocessed apricot and sulphurated apricot in natural convection solar food dryer

6th Central European Congress on Food, CEFood 2012 -- 23 May 2012 through 26 May 2012 -- 111394This paper presents a study on the mathematical modelling of solar drying of unprocessed apricot and sulphurated apricot. In this purpose, natural convection solar food dryer which has solar air collector was designed and manufactured for drying food products. Solar drying experiments of apricots were conducted in Izmir, Turkey and experiments were realized in two steps. In the first experiment, natural drying was done without applying any pretreatment. In the second experiment, apricots were dried after sulfuring pretreatment. During the drying period, relative humidity, air flow rates, drying air temperature, solar radiation and lose of food product's mass were measured continuously in the different parts of the dryer. Drying time is examined with mass ratio for each apricot type as polynomial and exponential correlations, separately. Fourteen different mathematical drying models available in literature were compared based on their coefficient of determination, mean bias error, root mean square error, modelling efficiency and reduced chi-square to estimate the solar drying curves. According to statistical analysis results, the Midilli and Kucuk drying model has shown a better fit to the experimental drying data of untreated apricot and sulphurated apricot with a coefficient of determination R2 of 0, 9982 and 0, 9948, respectively