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Microwave/air and microwave finish drying of

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Article in Journal of Food Engineering May 2000

DOI: 10.1016/S0260-8774(99)00167-3

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 Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178
www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Microwave/air and microwave nish drying of banana

Medeni Maskan
Department of Food Engineering, Engineering Faculty, University of Gaziantep, 27310 Gaziantep, Turkey
Received 16 July 1999; accepted 6 December 1999

Abstract
Banana samples (4:3  0:177; 7:4  0:251 and 14  0:492 mm thick) were dried using the following drying regimes; convection
(60C at 1.45 m/s); microwave (350, 490 and 700 W power) and convection followed by microwave (at 350 W, 4.3 mm thick sample)
nish drying. The drying of banana slices took place in the falling rate drying period with convection drying taking the longest time.
Higher drying rates were observed with the higher power level. Microwave nish drying reduced the convection drying time by
about 64.3%. A physical model was employed to t the experimental data and gave good t for all experimental runs except mi-
crowave nish data. Microwave nish dried banana was lighter in colour and had the highest rehydration value. 2000 Published
by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Notation
k drying constant (min1 )
MR moisture ratio
MW microwave
r2 coecient of determination
S.E. standard error
t drying time (min)
Wd weight of dried sample (g)
Wt weight of rehydrated sample (g) at any time
X moisture content (kg H2 O/kg dry solids) at any time
Xe equilibrium moisture content (kg H2 O/kg dry solids)
Xo initial moisture content (kg H2 O/kg dry solids)
1. Introduction
Banana is one of the important high sugar containing
tropical fruit crops grown commercially in many coun-
tries. It is very susceptible to deterioration and consid-
erable amounts of this fruit is wasted due to the lack of
ecient preservation techniques that are unique to ba-
nana. An alternative method seems to be drying to ob-
tain a stable banana for further use.
Drying is one of the oldest methods of food preser-
vation and it is a dicult food processing operation
mainly because of undesirable changes in quality of the
dried product. High temperatures and long drying times,
required to remove the water from the sugar containing
fruit material in conventional air drying, may cause se-
E-mail address: maskan@gantep.edu.tr (M. Maskan).
0260-8774/00/$ - see front matter 2000 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 0 - 8 7 7 4 ( 9 9 ) 0 0 1 6 7 - 3
rious damage to the avour, colour, nutrients, reduction
in bulk density and rehydration capacity of the dried
product (Lin, Durance & Scaman, 1998; Drouzas,
Tsami & Saravacos, 1999). Major disadvantages of hot
air drying of foods are low energy eciency and lengthy
drying time during the falling rate period. Because of the
low thermal conductivity of food materials in this peri-
od, heat transfer to the inner sections of foods during
conventional heating is limited (Adu & Otten, 1996;
Feng & Tang, 1998). The desire to eliminate this prob-
lem, prevent signicant quality loss, and achieve fast
and eective thermal processing has resulted in the in-
creasing use of microwaves for food drying. Microwave
drying is rapid, more uniform and energy ecient
compared to conventional hot air drying. In this case,
the removal of moisture is accelerated and, furthermore,
heat transfer to the solid is slowed down signicantly
due to the absence of convection. And also because of
the concentrated energy of a microwave system, only
2035% of the oor space is required, as compared to
conventional heating and drying equipment. However,
microwave drying is known to result in a poor quality
product if not properly applied (Yongsawatdigul &
Gunasekaran, 1996a; Adu & Otten, 1996; Drouzas &
Schubert, 1996).
It has also been suggested that microwave energy
should be applied in the falling rate period or at a low
moisture content for nish drying (Prabhanjan, Ra-
maswamy & Raghavan, 1995; Kostaropoulos & Sarav-
acos, 1995; Funebo & Ohlsson, 1998). The reason for
72 M. Maskan / Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178
this is essentially economic. Due to high cost, microwave
can not compete with conventional air drying. However,
microwaves may be advantageous in the last stages of
air drying. Because the least ecient portion of a con-
ventional drying system is near the end, when two-thirds
of the time may be spent removing the last one-third of
the moisture content (Al-Duri & McIntyre, 1992).
2. Microwave principles and application to drying of foods
Microwaves are electromagnetic waves in the fre-
quency range of 300 MHz to 300 GHz (equivalent to a
wavelength of 10.01 m), generated by a magnetron-
type vacuum tube. Electromagnetic energy at 915 and
2450 MHz can be absorbed by water containing mate-
rials or other ``lossy'' substances, such as carbon and
some organics, and converted to heat (Khraisheh,
Cooper & Magee, 1997a). Because the waves can pene-
trate directly into the material, heating is volumetric
(from the inside out) and provides fast and uniform
heating throughout the entire product. The quick energy
absorption by water molecules causes rapid evaporation
of water (results in higher drying rates of the food),
creating an outward ux of rapidly escaping vapour. In
addition to improving the rate of drying, this outward
ux can help to prevent the shrinkage of tissue structure,
which prevails in most conventional air drying tech-
niques. Hence better rehydration characteristics may be
expected in microwave dried products (Prabhanjan et al.,
1995).
In recent years, microwave drying has gained popu-
larity as an alternative drying method for a wide variety
of food products such as fruits, vegetables, snack foods
and dairy products. Several food products have been
successfully dried by the microwave-vacuum application
and/or by a combined microwave assisted-convection
process. These authors included Kim and Bhowmik
(1995) for plain yogurt, Yongsawatdigul and Gunasek-
aran (1996a) for cranberries, Lin et al. (1998) for carrot
slices, Drouzas et al. (1999) for model fruit gels, Al-Duri
and McIntyre (1992) for skimmed milk, whole milk,
casein powders, butter and fresh pasta, Bouraout,
Richard and Durance (1994) for potato slices, Prab-
hanjan et al. (1995) for carrots, Tulasidas, Raghavan
and Norris (1996) for grapes, Funebo and Ohlsson
(1998) for apple and mushroom, and Ren and Chen
(1998) for American ginseng roots.
Another group of researchers proposed a two-stage
drying process involving an initial forced air convective
drying, followed by a microwave nish drying (Prab-
hanjan et al., 1995; Feng & Tang, 1998). Microwave
application has been reported to improve product
quality such as better aroma, faster and better rehy-
dration, considerable savings in energy and much
shorter drying times compared with hot air drying
alone.
The objectives of this study are to: (1) compare drying
characteristics, colour and rehydration of banana sam-
ples dried by hot air, microwave and hot air followed by
a microwave nish drying; (2) determine the drying
constants, using a simple diusion model (Eq. (1)) and
assess the eect of selected parameters such as drying
temperature, sample thickness and microwave power.
X Xe
MR exp kt: 1
Xo Xe
For microwave drying it can be assumed that Xe 0.
3. Materials and methods
3.1. Material
Ripe bananas (Musa species) with an initial moisture
content of 3.1 kg H2 O/kg dry solids were obtained from
a local supermarket and stored at 4  0:5C. Prior to
drying, samples were taken out of storage, hand peeled,
cut into 4:3  0:177; 7:4  0:251; 14  0:492 mm thick
and 30  0:901 mm diameter slices (where  shows
standard deviation of measurements) with a cutting
machine. At least 10 measurements of the thickness were
made at dierent points with a dial micrometer; only
slices that fell within a 5% range of the average thickness
were used. All bananas used for drying were from the
same batch.
3.2. Drying equipment
A programmable domestic microwave oven (Arcelik
ARMD 580, TURKEY), with maximum output of
700 W at 2450 MHz. was used. The oven has the facility
to adjust power (wattage) supply and the time of pro-
cessing. The hot air drying experiments were performed
in a pilot plant tray dryer (UOP 8 tray dryer, Armeld,
UK). The dryer (Fig. 1) consisted of a proportional (P)
controller controlling the temperature. Air was drawn
into the duct through a mesh guard by a motor driven
axial ow fan impeller whose speed can be controlled in
the duct.
3.3. Drying procedure
The drying regimes were as follows:
(1) Hot air drying: The dryer was operated at an air
velocity of 1.45 m/s, parallel to the drying surface of the
sample, 60C dry bulb and 30C wet bulb temperatures.
The three sample thicknesses were studied at constant
temperature. Moisture loss was recorded at 10 min inter-
vals during drying for determination of drying curves
by a digital balance (Avery Berkel, CC062D10ABAAGA).
 M. Maskan / Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178
Fig. 1. Schematic diagram of the hot air drying equipment (not to scale).
Bananas were dried until equilibrium (no weight change)
was reached.
(2) Microwave drying: Factors investigated in micro-
wave drying were microwave power intensity (350, 490
and 700 W) at constant sample thickness of 4.3 mm, and
sample thickness/load (4.3 mm/3.56 g, 7.4 mm/5.60 g
and 14.0 mm/11.85 g) at constant microwave power
output of 490 W. One glass petri dish (7.1 cm diameter
1:2 cm deep), containing the sample, was placed on the
centre of a turntable tted inside (bottom) the micro-
wave cavity during treatment for even absorption of
microwave energy. The presence of the turntable was
necessary to achieve the optimum oven performance and
to reduce the levels of reected microwaves onto the
magnetron (Khraisheh et al., 1997b). The drying was
performed according to a preset power and time
schedule. Moisture loss was measured by taking out and
weighing the dish on the digital balance periodically.
When the material reached a constant weight, equilib-
rium moisture content was assumed to be reached. At-
tention was paid to ensure that the sample was not
charred.
(3) Air followed by a microwave nish drying: A 4.3 mm
thick banana sample was dried at 60C and 1.45 m/s air
velocity to 1.25 kg H2 O/kg dry solids moisture content,
the point where drying slows down. Then, sample was
taken out and dried in the microwave oven. Some pre-
liminary tests conducted on partially air dried sample
resulted in burning of sample at high microwave power
levels. Hence, a microwave power of 350 W was selected
for nish drying purpose.
3.4. Quality evaluation
For quality evaluation, similar drying experiments
were conducted separately under the same microwave,
hot air and microwave nish drying conditions. Drying
was terminated when moisture content reached about
0.1 kg H2 O/kg dry solids. After the drying tests, samples
were kept in air tight glass jars until measurements of
73
colour and rehydration was performed (within one week
after the drying).
3.4.1. Colour
Sample colour was measured before and after drying
by a HunterLab ColorFlex, A60-1010-615 model col-
ormeter (HunterLab., Reston, VA). The colour values
were expressed as L (whiteness/darkness), a (redness/
greenness) and b (yellowness/blueness). And also, the
total colour dierence from the fresh bananas DE, as
dened the following, was used to describe the colour
change during drying:
q

2
2
2
DE Lo L ao a bo b ; 2
where subscript ``o'' refers to the colour reading of fresh
banana, L ; a and b indicate brightness, redness and
yellowness of dried samples respectively. Fresh banana
was used as the reference and a larger DE denotes
greater colour change from the reference material.
3.4.2. Rehydration
The dried samples were manually ground and im-
mediately loaded (about 0.5 g each) into small alumi-
nium sample dishes. 100 ml of distilled water was
transferred into a glass jar and a tripod was also placed
in the jar. The dishes were placed on tripod in the jar
which was then tightly closed and kept at 20C for
equilibration. The dishes were periodically weighed until
equilibrium was reached. The rehydration ratio was
determined by
Wt Wd
Weight gain % 100: 3
Wd
3.5. Statistical analysis
Analysis of variance (A N O V A ) was conducted to de-
termine the eect of variable factors on drying param-
eters using Statgraphics software (1991). Least-squares
multiple range test was performed to dierentiate the
74 M. Maskan / Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178

signicant eect of drying methods on drying rate. The

parameter of non-linear model (Eq. (1)) was calculated
by the NLIN procedure of the SigmaPlot (Scientic
Graph System, version 4.00, Jandel).

4. Results and discussion

4.1. Hot air drying

The moisture content versus time curves for hot air

drying of banana samples as inuenced by thickness are
shown in Fig. 2. Obviously, as the thickness of the
sample increased, the time required to achieve a certain
moisture content increased. For example, the drying
times for reaching about 0.1 kg H2 O/kg dry solids
moisture content of 4.3, 7.4 and 14 mm thick samples
were about 482, 610 and 777 min respectively at 60C air
temperature. These results were in agreement with pre-
vious literature studies (Yusheng & Poulsen, 1988;
Madamba, Driscoll & Buckle, 1996; Maskan & Ibano-
glu, 1998). The drying rate was calculated at dierent
times and plotted against average moisture content as
shown in Fig. 3. A constant rate period was not ob-
served in hot air drying of banana samples at 60C.
Hence, the entire drying process for the samples oc-
curred in the range of falling rate period in this study.
However, it might be possible to have a short constant
rate period using lower temperatures such as 4050C.
It has been reported that almost all of the drying of
biological products takes place in the falling rate period
(Madamba et al., 1996). However, Mowlah, Takano,
Kamoi and Obara (1983) have found both constant and
falling rate periods in dehydration of bananas at 60C in
an air circulated oven. Air in the oven is saturated, by
the time, and forms a thick lm around the food that
prevents eective separation of the evaporated moisture
from the food. This may be the reason for existence of a
Fig. 3. Drying rate curves of banana slices dried by hot air (60C and
1.45 m/s).
constant rate period in their study. A high initial drying
rate, with higher rates at lower thicknesses, was ob-
served (Fig. 3). All the samples tended to dry slowly at
the last stages of drying, presumably due to collapse
(shrinkage) of the banana structure resulting in low
transport rate of water and prolonged drying time
(Kostaropoulos & Saravacos, 1995).
4.2. Microwave drying
The eect of changing the power output in the mi-
crowave oven on the moisture content curve of 4.3 mm
thick banana sample is shown in Fig. 4. At all power
levels, drying curves were steeper and tended to end at
about the same time. The observed initial acceleration of
drying may be caused by an opening of the physical
structure allowing rapid evaporation and transport of
water (Kostaropoulos & Saravacos, 1995). The A N O V A
showed no eect of the intensity of power on moisture

Fig. 4. Drying curves of banana slice (4:3  0:177 mm) dried by mi-
Fig. 2. Air drying curves for banana slices (air at 60C and 1.45 m/s). crowave method with dierent microwave power levels.
 M. Maskan / Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178
loss (P > 0:05). Similar results were obtained by Walde,
Balaswamy, Sivaswamy, Chakkaravarthi and Rao
(1995) for microwave drying of gum karaya and
Yongsawatdigul and Gunasekaran (1996b) for micro-
wave-vacuum drying of cranberries. However, several
investigators have reported the eect of power output on
drying time of food materials (Al-Duri & McIntyre,
1992; Prabhanjan et al., 1995; Drouzas & Schubert,
1996). Fig. 5 shows the eect of drying conditions on the
drying rate. Although high moisture foods can be ex-
pected to have a period of constant rate drying, this was
not observed in the present study under any of the test
conditions. The total drying times required to reach a
nal moisture content of about 0.1 kg H2 O/kg dry solids
were 13, 18 and 27 min at 700, 490 and 350 W, respec-
tively. These results show that the drying time of the
4.3 mm thick sample was shortened from 482 min by hot
air drying to the 1327 min range when dried by mi-
crowave energy. A N O V A results showed a signicant
dierence (P < 0:05) between drying rates of hot air and
microwave drying techniques. Average drying rate over
the drying periods was 0.0088 kg water/kg dry solids/
min for air dried, and between 0.0880 and 0.2027 kg
water/kg dry solids/min for microwave dried 4.3 mm
thick banana sample in the 350700 W power range,
respectively. The results indicated that mass transfer
within the sample is rapid during microwave heating
because heat is generated within the sample, creating a
large vapour pressure dierential between the centre and
the surface of products (Lin et al., 1998).
Eorts were made to study the eect of the sample
thickness (4.3, 7.4, 14 mm) on drying at constant power
output (490 W). In contrast to hot air drying, the thicker
sample dried more rapidly than the thin one. It is be-
cause of sudden and volumetric heating, generating high
pressure inside the bananas, resulted in boiling and
bubbling of the samples (Yongsawatdigul & Gunase-
Fig. 5. Drying rate curves of banana slice (4:3  0:177 mm) under
various microwave power levels.
75
karan, 1996b). Due to that, the 14 and 7.4 mm thick
samples spread on the bottom of the dishes as a thin
layer, a large drying surface area formed hence, drying
accelerated (data were not shown). Only the thin sample
(4.3 mm) maintained its shape without spreading and it
took much time to dry this sample compared to the
others. The drying times were found to be about 18, 13
and 10 min at 490 W for 4.3, 7.4 and 14 mm thick
samples to reach a moisture content of about 0.1 kg
H2 O/kg dry solids.
4.3. Microwave nish drying
Banana sample (4.3 mm thick) was hot-air dried at
60C initially, then microwave energy was applied (to
the point where conventional drying is very slow) for
nish drying. The drying rate versus average moisture
content curve was presented in Fig. 6. It can be seen that
microwave nish application increased the drying rate
signicantly (over 0.8 kg water/kg dry solids/min). The
same sample has an initial drying rate value of about
0.035 kg water/kg dry solids/min (Fig. 3) when air dried,
0.4 kg water/kg dry solids/min when microwave dried at
350 W microwave power output (Fig. 5). This applica-
tion also reduced the drying time from 482 to 172 min
(64.3% reduction in drying time) when dried by air and
nish dried respectively.
4.4. Modelling drying curves
In this work, Eq. (1) was employed as a physical
model for description of the drying processes, rather
than a mathematical model (Prabhanjan et al., 1995;
Madamba et al., 1996; Drouzas et al., 1999). Drying
data were used to test the applicability of this model.
The parameter k together with S.E. and r2 were evalu-
ated using nonlinear regression. The results are
Fig. 6. Drying rate of banana slice (4:3  0:177 mm) dried by hot air
(60C and 1.45 m/s) followed by microwave at 350 W power output.
76 M. Maskan / Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178

tabulated in Table 1. The model gave good t for all the
experimental runs with r2 values greater than 0.91. It did
not adequately t the whole data of microwave nish
drying experiment. Hence, the tting was done on hot
air and microwave nish drying parts separately. In the
case of hot air drying, the drying constant (k) estimated
from Eq. (1) was found to increase signicantly as the
thickness was reduced from 14 to 4.3 mm. However, the
opposite case was observed when banana was dried by
microwave at constant power level (490 W). The reason
for this was the spreading of the sample as explained
previously. This may be an advantage in terms of
shortening drying time, if the nal shape/size is not
important for the product. A signicant increase of
constant k was observed when the microwave power was
increased from 350 to 700 W. The highest value of k was
observed in the case of microwave application which
indicated that it oered a minimum resistance.
4.5. Colour
Table 2 shows the results of colour measurements of
fresh and dried bananas. Preferred colours are those
closest to the original colour of fresh sample. Air drying
resulted in a darker slice colour (lower L value) and less
red colour (low a value) than microwave drying. The
discoloration during drying may be related to nonen-
zymatic browning (Feng & Tang, 1998). No dierences
were observed between b values of air and microwave
dried samples. Microwave drying also caused colour
darkening. The dierences between colour values
(L ; a ; b ) of microwave dried samples were not sig-
nicant (P > 0:05). The change in colour values was not
dependent on the microwave power intensity. This is not
in agreement with the observation of Funebo and
Ohlsson (1998). The colour of the microwave nish
dried sample was much lighter (higher L value) than the
air and/or microwave dried product. At the same time
this drying process decreased the redness (a value) and
increased yellowness (b value).
The total colour change (DE) values, which takes into
account changes in redness and yellowness, were also
compared. Microwave nish drying caused little, and air
drying the highest colour change among the drying
methods. Drying temperature and time are important
parameters for colour change during drying. The lower
colour degradation of microwave nish dried banana
may, therefore, be due to the substantial reduction in
drying time. It is clear that microwave nish drying
maintained the colour quality of the fresh bananas com-
pared to the hot air and microwave drying methods alone.

Table 1
Nonlinear regression analysis results of Eq. (1)

Parameter Drying method

Air MW Air-MW nish

Thickness (mm) MW powera (W) Thicknessb (mm) Air part MW

part
4.3 7.4 14 700 490 350 4.3 7.4 14

K 0.0086 0.0059 0.003 0.268 0.188 0.141 0.188 0.387 0.469 0.0059 1.319
S.E. () 1  104 9  105 5  105 5  103 4  103 4  103 1  102 2  102 1  102 9  105 3  102
r2 0.992 0.991 0.987 0.995 0.994 0.994 0.916 0.978 0.998 0.988 0.999
a
Sample thickness is constant (4:3  0:177 mm).
b
MW power is constant (490 W).

Table 2
Colour parameters of fresh and dried banana slices (4:3  0:177 mm)

Parameter Fresh banana Drying method

Air MW (W) Air-MW nish

700 490 350

L* 71.01 40.815 53.25 55.13 52.88 62.08

a 3.96 6.32 9.95 9.46 11.70 5.97
b 21.75 14.35 13.37 13.85 16.46 18.00
DE 0.00 31.17 20.53 18.56 20.41 9.89
 M. Maskan / Journal of Food Engineering 44 (2000) 7178
Fig. 7. Eect of drying methods on rehydration capacity of banana
slice (4:3  0:177 mm) at 20C.
4.6. Rehydration
The rehydration characteristics of a dried product are
widely used as a quality index. Rehydration is a complex
process and indicates the physical and chemical changes
caused by drying and treatments preceding dehydration
(Lewicki, 1998; Feng & Tang, 1998). The rehydration
curves of dried banana slices at 20C were shown in
Fig. 7. The rehydration ratio of sample dried with the mi-
crowave nish method had the highest value (about 79 kg
water absorbed/100 kg of dried sample). A N O V A results
showed that the drying conditions did not inuence
(P > 0:05) the rehydration capacity of bananas. Similar
results were reported by Funebo and Ohlsson (1998) for
microwave-assisted air drying of apple and mushroom.
However, Drouzas and Schubert (1996) observed that
the microwave-vacuum dried banana slices absorbed
twice as much as moisture that the one conventionally
dried. And also, none of the dried products regained the
initial moisture. The lower rehydration values are evi-
dence for product shrinkage caused by severe heating
and/or prolonged drying resulting in irreversible physi-
co-chemical changes. These changes seemed to be min-
imum in the microwave nish dried sample.
5. Conclusion
Based on the results of this investigation, the fol-
lowing conclusions were drawn.
1. Under hot air drying, the rate of moisture loss was
high initially. However, at low moisture content hot
air drying was not advantageous as the diusion pro-
cess is slow.
2. The drying rate increased remarkably with power
output of the microwave oven.
3. Hot air followed by microwave nish drying in-
creased the drying rate and reduced the drying time.
77
It had little eect on the colour and rehydration ca-
pacity of nished products as compared to the hot
air and microwave drying methods.
4. Constant drying rate period was not observed under
any of the test conditions.
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