EAR CORN EQUILIBRIUM MOISTURE CONTENT: OBTENTION AND MODELING

The objectives of this work were to determine the Equilibrium Moisture Content of the ear corn for different temperature and relative humidity and to adjust different mathematical models for the experimental data. The procedure for obtaining the Equilibrium Moisture Content of ear corn, in a static method, used different saturated salt solutions in the desiccators in order to establish different Relative Humidity placed in a controlled temperature climatic chamber. The temperature varied from 10 to 50°C and the Relative Humidity from 0.11 to 0.84. Periodically, the samples were weighted until the Equilibrium Moisture Content was reached when the weight variation was equal or lower than 0.01 g. The experimental data were adjusted to the mathematical models recommended by ASAE. To evaluate the adjusting degree for each model it was considered the coefficient of squared magnitude, the mean relative deviation modulus magnitude and the estimated mean error, as well as verification of residual distribution behavior. It was concluded that the ear corn hygroscopic follows the same trend as most agricultural products and the Modified Chung-Pfost, the Modified Halsey and the Modified Oswin models represent appropriately the phenomenon