A multiscale model to determine homogenized diffusivity for convective drying of food material

This research developed a multiscale homogenization model to incorporate the cellular heterogeneity of fruit and vegetables into a heat and mass transport model. The homogenization was performed on the cellular structure of apple tissue considering intracellular and intercellular water separately in order to calculate the effective diffusivity for convective drying. The results were compared with experimental data as well as temperature dependent diffusivity through an Arrhenius-type relationship. This new approach was able to achieve comparable results and provides an advanced technique to calculate the diffusivity using the knowledge of the microstructural evolutio