International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013, 48, 1909–1915 1909

Original article
Experimental study on drying of pear slices in a convective dryer

İbrahim Doymaz*
Department of Chemical Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, Esenler, 34210 Istanbul, Turkey
(Received 22 November 2012; Accepted in revised form 24 March 2013)

Summary The experiments were conducted on pear slices with thickness of 5 mm at temperatures of 50, 57, 64 and
71 °C with an air velocity of 2.0 m s
1. Prior to drying, pear slices were pretreated with citric acid solu-
tion (0.5% w/w, 1 min, 20 °C) or blanched in hot water (1 min, 85 °C). Also, the untreated samples were
dried as control. The shortest drying time of pear slices was obtained with pretreatment with citric acid
solution. It was observed that whole drying process of pear slices took place in a falling rate period. Four
mathematical models were tested to fit drying data of pear slices. According to the statistical criteria (R2,
v2 and RMSE), the Midilli et al. model was found to be the best model to describe the drying behaviour
of pear slices. The effective diffusivity of moisture transfer during drying process varied between
8.56 9 10
11 and 2.25 9 10
10 m2 s
1, while the activation energy of moisture diffusion in pear slices
was found to be 34.95–41.00 kJ mol
1.
Keywords Activation energy, drying, effective moisture diffusivity, mathematical modelling, pear slices.

Introduction Pretreatments of some agricultural foods prior to

Pear (Pyrus communis L.) is a typical fruit of temperate
zones, originated in the Asiatic region. Worldwide pro-
duction of pear is 22 731 087 metric ton in 2010, and
the major producers include China, Italy, United
States of America, Argentina, Spain, India, Turkey
and South Africa (FAO, 2012). The common process-
ing techniques of pears are conserves in syrup, purees
for use in nectars, yogurts and drying. The dried pear
can be used in bakery products, gravies, compotes and
for consumption of the dry fruit (Park et al., 2002).
Fruits and other food products are materials that eas-
ily deteriorate without appropriate processing. One of
the most important preservation processes that have
been used decades in food and chemical industries is
drying (Fumagalli & Silveria, 2005). Drying, as an
appropriate postharvest technology, will prolong shelf
life of the fruit and other agro products. It will preserve
its quality and stability by lowering water activity
through decrease in moisture content, thus avoiding
spoilage and contamination during storage (Ah-Hen
et al., 2013). Drying also brings about substantial
reduction in weight and volume, minimising packaging,
storage and transportation costs (Fumagalli & Silveria,
2005; Falade & Solademi, 2010).
*Correspondent: Fax: +90 212 383 47 25;
e-mail: doymaz@yildiz.edu.tr
drying have been reported to help reduce some of
undesired changes such as colour and textural
changes. Also, they reduce drying time by relaxing
tissue structure and yield a good-quality dried prod-
uct. Potassium and sodium hydroxide, potassium car-
bonate, potassium metabisulphate, methyl and ethyl
ester emulsions, citric and ascorbic acids are used
most commonly and commercially in some pretreat-
ments (Doymaz, 2004; Tarhan et al., 2006; Bingol
et al., 2012). Usually, raw fruits and vegetables are
blanched before drying. The purpose of blanching is
to inactivate enzymes responsible for browning and
the hydrolysis of lipids, which could lead to the devel-
opment of off-flavours during storage of the dried
product (Cunningham et al., 2008). Generally, fruits
and vegetables are blanched by heating them with
steam or hot water.
Simulation of the drying process through mathe-
matical modelling is an important tool used to mini-
mise operative problems such as product damage and
excessive consumption of energy, among others. Many
mathematical models have been proposed to describe
drying process, from diffusion to thin-layer models,
which can be grouped into theoretical, semi-theoreti-
cal and empirical (Guin
e, 2010). Recently, there has
been many research on the mathematical modelling
and experimental studies of the drying behaviour of
various fruits, such as apple (Akpinar et al., 2003),

doi:10.1111/ijfs.12170
© 2013 The Author. International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2013 Institute of Food Science and Technology
1910 Drying of pear slices I. Doymaz
apricot (Togrul & Pehlivan, 2003; Doymaz, 2004), fig
(Babalis & Belessiotis, 2004), prune and plum
(Sabarez & Price, 1999; Goyal et al., 2007), sour
cherry (Tarhan et al., 2006), yam (Sobukola et al.,
2008), sweet potato (Falade & Solademi, 2010) and
grape (Bingol et al., 2012). Some studies have been
published concerning processing attributes of pear
drying. Guin
e (2010) studied that S. Bartolomeu pears
dried in the three alternative systems (solar stove,
solar drier and drying tunnel) mentioned, and their
drying kinetics were studied. He fitted the experi-
mental data to eight drying models and reported the
Henderson and Pabis, Logarithmic and Vega–Lemus
models were the best fitted data. Park et al. (2002)
studied the drying of Bartlett pear slices as flat plates
without considering the product shrinkage during the
process. They reported that the values of effective dif-
fusivity for pear in natural varied from 2 to
8 9 10
8 m2 s
1. However, the pretreatments such as
citric acid solution and blanching with hot water on
drying kinetics, effective moisture diffusivity and acti-
vation energy of pear slices have not yet been
reported. The objective of this study was as follows:
(i) to study the effect of pretreatments on the drying
kinetics and rehydration ratio, (ii) to fit the model to
experimental data and (iii) to compute effective mois-
ture diffusivity and activation energy.
Material and methods
Raw material
A local variety of pears known as Deveci was pur-
chased from a local market in Istanbul and stored at
4 °C in a refrigerator until experiments. Before drying
process, pear samples were cleaned, peeled and sliced
(crossly) manually with a thickness of 0.5  0.1 cm.
Then, the samples were pretreated with solution of
citric acid and blanched with hot water for inactiva-
tion of enzymes. Table 1 lists the pretreatments
investigated in this study.
Table 1 List of pretreatments
Code Description
Citric acid The samples were pretreated with solution of citric acid
(1:25, w/w) 20  1 °C for 1 min. After pretreatment, the
samples were blotted with tissue paper to remove
superficial water.
Blanching The samples were blanched by immersing in hot water
at 80  1 °C for 1 min. After blanching, the samples
were cooled to room temperature, under running cold
water, and then blotted with tissue paper to remove
superficial water.
Control The samples were not pretreated with anything (control).
International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013
International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2013 Institute of Food Science and Technology
To determine initial moisture content of the sam-
ples, four 3  0.1 g of samples were dried in a Selecta
oven (Digiheat, Abrera, Barcelona, Spain) at 110 °C
for 24 h. The average initial moisture content of pear
slices was found as 81.5% (w.b.).
Drying procedure
Drying experiments were performed in a cabinet
dryer, described previously by Doymaz (2004) and
installed in the Chemical Engineering Department of
Yildiz Technical University, Istanbul, Turkey. The
cabinet dryer was started about 30 min before drying
experiments to achieve steady state conditions before
each drying run. Then, the pear slices weighing
about 100  2 g were spread on the tray. Experi-
ments were performed at four temperatures of
50, 57, 64 and 71 °C and constant air velocity of
2 m s
1. Air flowed perpendicularly to drying sur-
faces of the samples. Initial weight of the tray and
sample was noted. During drying process, the tray
was taken out at 15-min interval and weighed using
a digital electronic balance (model BB3000; Mettler-
Toledo AG, Grefensee, Switzerland), which has
0–3000 g measurement range with an accuracy of
0.1 g. All weighing processes were completed in
10 s during drying process. Drying was stopped when
the final moisture content of samples decreased to
15% (w.b.) from initial value of 81.5% (w.b.). Then,
the dried samples were packed into polyethylene
bags, which were then heat sealed and stored in
incubators at ambient temperature. The experiments
were replicated three times, and the average of the
moisture ratio at each value was used for construct-
ing the drying curves.
Mathematical modelling
Four drying mathematical models available in the lit-
erature were shown in Table 2. The dimensionless
moisture ratio (MR) of the samples is defined accord-
ing to eqn (1):
M
Me
MR ¼ ð1Þ
M0
Me
Table 2 Selected drying models used to fit the drying curves
Model name Model References
Lewis MR = exp(
kt) Roberts et al. (2008)
Henderson MR ¼ a expð-ktÞ Ghodake et al. (2006)
and Pabis
Page MR = exp(
ktn) Falade & Solademi (2010)
Midilli et al. MR ¼ a expð-ktÞ þ bt Bingol et al. (2012)
© 2013 The Author
 Drying of pear slices I. Doymaz 1911

where M, M0 and Me are moisture content at any And applying:

time, initial moisture content and equilibrium moisture ZL
content (kg water/kg dm), respectively, and t is drying 1
time (min). The value of Me was small compared to M¼ Mðx; tÞdx ð7Þ
L
M or M0, so MR can be simplified to (Rayaguru & 0
Routray, 2012): With the assumptions of moisture migration by dif-
M fusion, negligible shrinkage and constant diffusion
MR ¼ ð2Þ coefficients and temperature, the solution of Fick’s
M0
equation (eqn 6) for a semi-infinite slab is as follows
The drying rate (DR) of pear slices was calculated (Crank, 1975).
using eqn (3): Mt
MtþDt Eqn (6) becomes:
DR ¼ ð3Þ !
Dt
8X 1
1 ð2n þ 1Þ2 p2 Deff t
where Mt and Mt+Dt are moisture content at t and MR ¼ 2 exp
ð8Þ
t+ Dt (kg water/kg dm), respectively, and t is time p n¼0 ð2n þ 1Þ2 4L2
(min).
where Deff is the effective moisture diffusivity (m2 s
1),
t is the drying time (s), L is the half-thickness of sam-
Statistical analysis ples (m), and n is a positive integer. For long drying
Data were analysed using Statistica 6.0 (StatSoft Inc., times, eqn (8) simplifies to a limiting form of the diffu-
USA) software package. The parameters of models sion equation as given by eqn (9):
were estimated using a nonlinear regression procedure  2 
8 p Deff t
based on the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm. The fit- MR ¼ 2 exp
ð9Þ
ting quality of the experimental data to all models was p 4L2
evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R2), From eqn (9), a plot of ln MR vs. drying time
reduced chi-square (v2) and root mean square error should give a straight line with a slope (K):
(RMSE). These parameters were calculated from the
following formulas: p2 Deff
K¼ ð10Þ
N
4L2
P 2
MRexp;i
MRpre;i Using the slope value (eqn 10), the effective mois-
v2 ¼ i¼1 ð4Þ ture diffusivity could be determined.
N
z
" #1=2
1X N Determination of activation energy
RMSE ¼ ðMRpre;i
MRexp;i Þ2 ð5Þ The effective moisture diffusivity can be related to tem-
N i¼1
perature by a simple Arrhenius-type relationship as
where MRexp and MRpre are experimental and pred- given in eqn (11) (Falade & Solademi, 2010):
icted dimensionless moisture ratios, respectively, N is  
Ea
number of observations, and z is number of constants Deff ¼ D0 exp
ð11Þ
(Guin
e et al., 2007; Rayaguru & Routray, 2012). RðT þ 273:15Þ
where D0 is the pre-exponential factor of the Arrhe-
Determination of effective moisture diffusivity nius equation (m2 s
1), Ea is the activation energy for
the moisture diffusion (kJ mol
1), R is the ideal gas
The effective moisture diffusivity is an important trans- constant (kJ mol
1 K), and T is the temperature in
port property in drying of food and other materials. (°C). eqn (11) can be rearranged into the form:
Fick’s second law of diffusion equation, symbolised as
Ea
a mass diffusion equation for drying agricultural prod- lnðDeff Þ ¼ lnðD0 Þ
ð12Þ
ucts in a falling rate period, is shown in the following RðT þ 273:15Þ
equation:
 
@M @ @M Rehydration experiments
¼ Deff ð6Þ
@t @x @x
Rehydration experiments were carried out in distilled
Using the following initial and boundary conditions: water bath at constant temperatures of 25, 45 and
Uniform initial moisture: Mðx;
 0Þ ¼ M0 65 °C (1 °C). Three grams of the dried products (dry-
Symmetry of moisture: @M  ¼ 0 ing temperature: 64 °C) was added to 300 ml distilled
@x x¼0
Equilibrium moisture at surface: M (L,t) = Me water, agitated and then allowed to rehydrate. At every

© 2013 The Author International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013
International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2013 Institute of Food Science and Technology
1912 Drying of pear slices I. Doymaz

30-min intervals, the samples were removed from the Influence of pretreatment on drying time
water, drained and weighed. The weights of dried and
According to the results in Fig. S1, pretreatment is
rehydrated samples were measured with an electronic
very important parameter that affects the drying time.
digital balance (Precisa, model XB220A; Precisa
The samples dipped in citric acid solution prior to dry-
Instruments AG, Dietikon, Switzerland) having a
ing were found to have a shorter drying time com-
sensitivity of 0.001 g. The experiments were carried out
pared to blanched and control samples. To reach a
in triplicate, and their average values were reported.
final water content (15%) in blanched and control
The rehydration ratio (RR) was calculated as follows:
samples, 405 and 525 min of drying at 50 °C were
Wr needed, while pear slices pretreated with citric acid
RR ¼ ð13Þ
Wd solution reached this water content after 375 min. The
difference in drying times was close to 8% and 40%,
where Wr is the weight after rehydration (kg), and Wd
respectively. These results show that citric acid solu-
is the weight before rehydration (kg).
tion contributed to increase the permeability of the cell
membranes of pear slices, leading to an increase in
Results and discussion water diffusivity. Blanched in hot water of pear slices,
the drying time was lower than the corresponding ones
Influence of drying air temperature for to the control samples (Fig. S1). This behaviour
was probably due to softening by the blanching treat-
Typical drying curves are displayed in Fig. S1. It is
ment, which facilitated the water removal. Similar
clearly evident from these curves that the moisture
trends were observed at drying temperatures of 57, 64
content decreases continuously with drying time. As
and 71 °C. The observed pretreatment characteristics
expected, a strong effect of temperature on drying time
were also reported in previous investigations on differ-
was observed. Drying time decreased with increasing
ent agro products (Doymaz, 2004; Tunde-Akintunde,
drying temperature. The total time required for drying
2011; Bingol et al., 2012).
of control pear slices at 50, 57, 64 and 71 °C to reach
a final moisture content of 15% (w.b) was 525, 480,
360 and 255 min, respectively. The reduction in total Fitting of the drying curves
drying time with increasing temperature may be due to
Evaluation of the models to determine moisture ratio
increase in vapour pressure within the product with
as the function of drying time, Lewis, Henderson and
increase in temperature, which resulted in faster migra-
Pabis, Page and Midilli et al. (Table 2) were fitted
tion of moisture to the product surface. Similar trends
and R2, v2 and RMSE were calculated. Table 3–6
were observed in other samples. Several authors
show the results of the regression analysis performed
reported considerable decreases in drying times when
on the drying data. In all cases, the values of R2 for
higher temperatures were used for drying various
the models were greater than 0.96, indicating a good fit.
crops. These included Akpinar et al. (2003) and Seiied-
The values of R2, v2 and RMSE for models ranged from
lou et al. (2010) for apple, Sobukola et al. (2008) and
0.9690 to 0.9999, 0.000004 to 0.003024 and 0.006599 to
Xiao et al. (2012) for yam slices, Xiao et al. (2010) for
0.200264, respectively. In general, the Midilli et al.
grapes, Djendoubi Mrad et al. (2012) and Guin
e
model best fitted to the experimental data of pear slices
(2010) for pear.
for all temperatures, followed by the Page model. The
The change in the drying rate as a result of the
values of R2, v2 and RMSE for Midilli et al. model ran-
reduction in the water content of samples during dry-
ged from 0.9993 to 0.9999, 0.000004 to 0.000074 and
ing process is given in Fig. S2. The drying rate curves
0.006599 to 0.032926, respectively. Fig. S3 shows the
indicate that drying of pear slices took place only in
variations of experimental and predicted moisture ratio
falling rate period. During this period, the migration
values by the Midilli et al. model. The prediction using
of moisture occurred through the mechanism of diffu-
the models showed MR values banded along a straight
sion. The drying rates were higher in the beginning of
line, which proved the suitability of this model in
the drying process and later decreased with decrease in
describing the drying characteristics of pear slices.
moisture for all samples under all the conditions of
drying process. Also, the higher drying air temperature
produced a higher drying rate and consequently faster Effective moisture diffusivity
reduction in the moisture content, and hence, the total
The values of effective moisture diffusivity (Deff) for dif-
drying time was reduced. Similar results were reported
ferent temperatures and pretreatments, obtained using
by Akpinar et al. (2003) for apple, Guin
e et al. (2007)
eqn (10), are presented in Fig. S4. The average values of
for pear and Falade & Solademi (2010) for sweet
Deff of pear slices in the drying process at 50–71 °C
potato.

International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013 © 2013 The Author
International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2013 Institute of Food Science and Technology
 Drying of pear slices I. Doymaz 1913

Table 3 Results of the fitting to the experimental data at 50 °C

Code Model Coefficients R2 v2 RMSE

Citric acid Lewis k: 0.007098 0.9942 0.000484 0.098841

Henderson and Pabis a: 1.028495, k: 0.007305 0.9953 0.000409 0.089240
Page k: 0.003907, n: 1.117216 0.9982 0.000148 0.044936
Midilli et al. a: 0.994734, b:
0.000133, k: 0.005216, n: 1.042887 0.9995 0.000041 0.025548
Blanching Lewis k: 0.006370 0.9920 0.000667 0.120564
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.034127, k: 0.006593 0.9936 0.000555 0.108674
Page k: 0.003058, n: 1.141345 0.9989 0.000187 0.061071
Midilli et al. a: 0.992481, b:
0.000145, k: 0.004239, n: 1.057688 0.9995 0.000045 0.029368
Control Lewis k: 0.004225 0.9821 0.001467 0.192353
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.047474, k: 0.004439 0.9854 0.001230 0.177861
Page k: 0.001306, n: 1.211684 0.9945 0.000460 0.107230
Midilli et al. a: 0.992741, b:
0.000282, k: 0.002923, n: 1.019671 0.9996 0.000031 0.025991

Table 4 Results of the fitting to the experimental data at 57 °C

Code Model Coefficients R2 v2 RMSE

Citric acid Lewis k: 0.007541 0.9906 0.000818 0.116996

Henderson and Pabis a: 1.042701, k: 0.007872 0.9931 0.000626 0.098961
Page k: 0.003235, n: 1.168999 0.9985 0.000133 0.045345
Midilli et al. a: 0.997676, b:
0.000180, k: 0.004650, n: 1.075773 0.9999 0.000004 0.006599
Blanching Lewis k: 0.006662 0.9963 0.000295 0.073756
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.020044, k: 0.006802 0.9968 0.000260 0.066334
Page k: 0.004526, n: 1.075146 0.9981 0.000152 0.052530
Midilli et al. a: 1.005819, b:
0.000168, k: 0.007146, n: 0.966557 0.9997 0.000024 0.020946
Control Lewis k: 0.005772 0.9987 0.000097 0.043470
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.011151, k: 0.005839 0.9988 0.000087 0.039843
Page k: 0.004875, n: 1.031862 0.9990 0.000072 0.037886
Midilli et al. a: 1.009054, b:
0.000069, k: 0.006588, n: 0.966585 0.9995 0.000037 0.028687

Table 5 Results of the fitting to the experimental data at 64 °C

Code Model Coefficients R2 v2 RMSE

Citric acid Lewis k: 0.007776 0.9763 0.002165 0.168930

Henderson and Pabis a: 1.057414, k: 0.008253 0.9814 0.002620 0.189196
Page k: 0.001991, n: 1.276968 0.9946 0.000514 0.078717
Midilli et al. a: 0.997796, b:
0.000619, k: 0.004521, n: 1.051069 0.9998 0.000016 0.011604
Blanching Lewis k: 0.006948 0.9750 0.002227 0.179961
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.055948, k: 0.007366 0.9799 0.001888 0.162582
Page k: 0.001736, n: 1.275890 0.9935 0.000611 0.092951
Midilli et al. a: 0.995800, b:
0.000632, k: 0.004283, n: 1.030195 0.9997 0.000029 0.017991
Control Lewis k: 0.006451 0.9794 0.001867 0.189006
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.059585, k: 0.006848 0.9842 0.001485 0.164629
Page k: 0.001666, n: 1.263190 0.9962 0.000351 0.078926
Midilli et al. a: 0.987976, b:
0.000248, k: 0.002599, n: 1.143811 0.9993 0.000069 0.032926

varied in the range of 8.56 9 10
11– et al., 1996). The values for Deff obtained from this

10 2
1
2.25 9 10 m s . It can be seen that the values of study are comparable to 2–8 9 10
10 m2 s
1 for d’An-
Deff increased greatly with increasing temperature. The jou pear dried in hot-air dryer (Park et al., 2002) and
values reported herein are within the general range of 9.75 9 10
10 m2 s
1 for S. Bartolomeu pear dried in
10
8 to 10
12 m2 s
1 for biological materials (Zogzas convective dryer (Guin
e et al., 2007). The differences

© 2013 The Author International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013
International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2013 Institute of Food Science and Technology
1914 Drying of pear slices I. Doymaz

Table 6 Results of the fitting to the experimental data at 71°C

Code Model Coefficients R2 v2 RMSE

Citric acid Lewis k: 0.014245 0.9892 0.001078 0.103270

Henderson and Pabis a: 1.03866, k: 0.014793 0.9914 0.000942 0.093882
Page k: 0.006042, n: 1.195319 0.9982 0.000190 0.040430
Midilli et al. a: 0.996263, b:
0.000278, k: 0.007948, n: 1.112085 0.9994 0.000074 0.022431
Blanching Lewis k: 0.008196 0.9690 0.001179 0.111162
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.045424, k: 0.012056 0.9907 0.000959 0.096977
Page k: 0.004507, n: 1.204943 0.9981 0.000189 0.043602
Midilli et al. a: 1.000169, b:
0.000329, k: 0.006756, n: 1.090475 0.9998 0.000018 0.011341
Control Lewis k: 0.008196 0.9690 0.003024 0.200264
Henderson and Pabis a: 1.078393, k: 0.008874 0.9780 0.002276 0.167210
Page k: 0.001450, n: 1.356322 0.9964 0.000373 0.067238
Midilli et al. a: 1.001252, b:
0.000483, k: 0.002903, n: 1.169296 0.9997 0.000033 0.018102

between the results can be explained by effect of type, Rehydration ratio

slice thickness, composition and tissue characteristics of
the pear and the proposed model used for calculation. Rehydration ratio is considered as one of the impor-
tant quality attributes for dried products. High rehy-
dration ratio illustrates the high water reabsorption of
Activation energy dried products indicating less damage of the cell struc-
ture of plant tissues. Rehydration curves of pear slices
The activation energy was calculated by plotting the at different rehydration temperature, calculated from
natural logarithm of Deff vs. reciprocal of the absolute eqn (13), are shown in Fig. S6. The rehydration ratio
temperature showed straight line in the range of air increased when rehydration temperatures increased
temperatures studied, indicating Arrhenius dependence from 25 to 65 °C. From Fig. S6, rehydration ratio at
(Fig. S5). Eqns (14), (15) and (16) show the effect of 65 °C was more rapid than 25 and 45 °C. Rehydration
temperature on Deff of the pretreated and the control at high temperatures improves due to the effect of
samples with following coefficients: temperature on cell wall and tissue (Singh et al., 2006).
Citric acid: As seen in Fig. S6, the rehydration ratio of blanched
 
4931:9 samples resulted in the highest rehydration, compared
Deff ¼ 3:571  10
4 exp
ðR2 : 0:9771Þ to pretreated with citric acid solutions and control
ðT þ 273:15Þ
samples. Besides, the rehydration ratio for citric acid
ð14Þ solution samples was lower than blanched and control
Blanching: samples.
 
4624:4
Deff ¼ 1:184  10
4 exp
ðR2 : 0:9678Þ
ðT þ 273:15Þ Conclusions
ð15Þ The influence of pretreatments such as dipping solu-
tion and blanching on modelling of drying of pear
Control:
  slices was investigated in this study. The time required
4203:8 to drying process was comparatively lower in pretreat-
Deff ¼ 2:944  10
6 exp
ðR2 : 0:9699Þ
ðT þ 273:15Þ ed samples compared to control ones. From the study,
it is also observed that the rehydration ratio was
ð16Þ higher in blanched slices than in others. Drying pro-
The activation energy values were found to be 41.00, cess takes place in the falling rate period. According to
38.45 and 34.95 kJ mol
1 for citric acid, blanching and statistical analysis applied to four mathematical mod-
control samples, respectively. Similar values of Ea for els, the Midilli et al. model provided the best represen-
pear are reported for by Park et al. (2002) as tation of drying kinetics, based on the criteria: higher
29.4 kJ mol
1 and Doymaz & Ismail (2012) as values of the regression coefficient and lower values of
44.78 kJ mol
1. The differences between the results can v2 and RMSE. The effective moisture diffusivity
be explained by effect of type, slice thickness, composi- increased with increasing air temperature and varied
tion and tissue characteristics of the pear. The values of from 8.56 9 10
11 to 2.25 9 10
10 m2 s
1 over the
activation energy lie within the general range of 12.7– temperature range studied. The activation energy val-
110 kJ mol
1 for food materials (Zogzas et al., 1996). ues varied from 34.95 to 41.00 kJ mol
1.

International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013 © 2013 The Author
International Journal of Food Science and Technology © 2013 Institute of Food Science and Technology

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Supporting Information
Additional Supporting Information may be found in
the online version of this article:
Figure S1. Variation of moisture content vs. drying
time obtained at various temperatures (a) 50 °C, (b)
57 °C, (c) 64 °C and (d) 71 °C.
Figure S2. Drying rates vs. moisture content of pear
slices at different temperatures (a) 50 °C, (b) 57 °C, (c)
64 °C and (d) 71 °C.
Figure S3. Comparison of experimental with and
predicted moisture ratios from the Midilli et al. model
at different temperatures (a) 50 °C, (b) 57 °C, (c)
64 °C and (d) 71 °C.
Figure S4. Comparison between the pear slices with
pre-treatments and without drying in terms of effective
moisture diffusivity
Figure S5. Arrhenius-type relationship between effec-
tive diffusivity and reciprocal of absolute temperature
Figure S6. Rehydration ratio vs. rehydration time at
different temperatures (a) 25 °C, (b) 45 °C and (c)
65 °C.
International Journal of Food Science and Technology 2013