food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

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Food and Bioproducts Processing

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/fbp

Drying characteristics of sweet cherry

Ibrahim Doymaz , Osman Ismail
Yildiz Technical University, Chemical Engineering Department, Davutpasa Street, No. 127, 34210 Esenler, Istanbul, Turkey

a b s t r a c t
The effects of alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate and air temperature (60, 70 and 75 C) on the drying characteristics of sweet cherry were studied using a hot air dryer at a constant air velocity of 2.0 m/s. It was observed that both the alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate and air temperature affected the drying time. The drying times of pre-treated samples were 19.522.6% shorter than those of control samples. Five semi-theoretical thin-layer models, namely, Lewis, Henderson and Pabis, Logarithmic, Page, Wang and Singh models were used for the modeling of the drying kinetics. The t quality obtained with each model was evaluated using statistical tests. After comparing experimentally obtained values with the calculated values from the models, it was concluded that Page model represents the drying characteristics better than the other models. The effective moisture diffusivity was determined by using Ficks second law and was observed to lie between 5.683 1010 and 1.544 109 m2 /s for the pre-treated and control samples. Rehydration ratio was signicantly affected by pre-treatment and air temperature. It was found to increase proportionally with the increase in air drying temperature. 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sweet cherry; Drying; Mathematical models; Pre-treatment solution; Rehydration ratio

1.

Introduction

Cherries occupy the Cerasus subgenus within Prunus genous of Rosaceae family, subfamily Prunodeae. Prunus avium L. is the sweet cherry and Prunus cerasus L. is the sour cherry. The worldwide cherry production in 2007 was 2 083 110 tons, of which 398 141 tons were harvested in Turkey, the primary cherry producing country. The other countries producing cherries with their 2007 harvest amounts are USA with 310 700 tons, Iran with 225 000 tons, Italy with 145 126 tons and the Russian Federation with 100 000 tons (FAO, 2009). Sweet cherry is not only consumed fresh but also used to produce jam, jelly, stewed fruit, marmalade, syrup and several types of soft drinks (Vursavus et al., 2006). Sweet cherries are highly perishable and therefore require the use of some post-harvest treatments in order to be effectively preserved. Drying is one of these preservation methods (Vagenas and Marinos-Kouris, 1991). Dried fruits have a long self-life and therefore can provide a good alternative to fresh fruits, allowing the availability of out of season fruits (Jokic et al., 2009). Drying can be described as an industrial preservation method, in which the water content and activity of fruits and vegetables are decreased by heated air, to minimize biochem-

ical, chemical and microbiological deterioration. The major objective in drying agricultural products is the reduction of their moisture content to a level, which allows safe storage over an extended period. The other advantages of dried products are their minimized packaging requirements and lower shipping costs as a result of reduced weight (Sabarez et al., 1997). Several drying methods are commercially used to remove moisture from a wide variety of food products, including fruit and vegetables. Sun drying is the most common method that is used to preserve agricultural products. It is a cheap method of preservation because it uses a natural resource/source of heat: sunlight. However, the slowness of the process, the exposure to environmental contamination, the unstable weather conditions (cloudiness and rain), insect infestation and the manual labor requirements are some of its disadvantages (Kostaropoulos and Saravacos, 1995; Aghbashlo et al., 2008). In order to improve the quality of products, the sun drying technique should be replaced with industrial drying methods such as solar and hot air drying (Sacilik et al., 2006; Kingsly et al., 2007; Adedeji et al., 2008). Drying of fruits is one of the most time and energy consuming processes in the food industry. To reduce the processing time, hence to accelerate the drying process, a number of

Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 212 383 47 48; fax: +90 212 383 27 25. E-mail address: doymaz@yildiz.edu.tr (I. Doymaz). Received 15 October 2009; Received in revised form 6 February 2010; Accepted 11 March 2010 0960-3085/$ see front matter 2010 The Institution of Chemical Engineers. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.fbp.2010.03.006

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food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

Nomenclature a, b, c Deff D0 Ea k K MRexp,i MRpre,i Me M0 Mt N n R R2 RMSE T t Wd Wr z

2

drying coefcients effective moisture diffusivity (m2 /s) pre-exponential factor of Arrhenius equation (m2 /s) activation energy (kJ/mol) drying constants (min1 ) slope experimental moisture ratio predicted moisture ratio equilibrium moisture content (kg water/kg dm) initial moisture content (kg water/kg dm) moisture content at any time (kg water/kg dm) number of observations constant, positive integer radius, the universal gas constant in (kJ/mol K) determination of coefcient root mean square error temperature ( C) drying time (min) weight of dried material (kg) weight after rehydration (kg) number of coefcients and constants reduced chi-square

vacuum drying at 70 C for 24 h over a magnesium sulphate desiccant. This was repeated three times to obtain a reasonable average. The initial moisture content of the samples was found as 3.34 0.2 kg water/kg dm (77.27%, w.b.).

2.2.

Drying procedure

obstacles must be overcome. The main problem in the drying of fruits such as grape, apricot, plum, cranberry, cherry and strawberry is are covered naturally with a thin-layer of wax cuticle, which controls the rate of moisture diffusion through the samples. Chemical pre-treatments such as ethyl or methyl ester emulsions, alkali solutions of sodium hydroxide and potassium carbonate normally break down the wax cuticular fruit surface and create microscopic cracks that increase moisture permeability. Common chemical pre-treatments consist of dipping fresh fruits into solutions of fatty acid esters such as such as ethyl or methyl ester emulsions or alkali solutions of sodium hydroxide and potassium carbonate solutions for several seconds. The effects of pre-treatment solutions on some fruits are reported by some authors in the literature (Eissen et al., 1985; Alvarez and Legues, 1986; Raouzeos and Saravacos, 1986; Saravacos et al., 1988; Kostaropoulos and Saravacos, 1995; Pahlavanzadeh et al., 2001; Doymaz, 2004; Doymaz, 2006; Tarhan et al., 2006; Kingsly et al., 2007; Bingol et al., 2008; Serratosa et al., 2008). However, there is no information regarding the effect of the alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate on the drying of sweet cherry in the literature. The objectives of this study were to investigate the effects of the alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate and air temperature on the drying kinetics and rehydration ratio, to select the best mathematical model for the drying curves, and to estimate the effective diffusivity and activation energy from the drying conditions.

Samples were washed and then dipped into alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate (AEEO) for about 1 min in order to increase the water permeability of the skin. The AEEO was prepared by mixing water, potassium carbonate (3%, w/v) and ethyl oleate (2%, w/v) at room temperature. The other group, classied as CONTROL, had no pre-treatments and was also dried at the same temperature. The thin-layer experiments were conducted with about 125 1 g of sweet cherry. Drying experiments were performed in a cabinet type dryer (API & PASILAC Limited of Carlisle, Cumbria, UK), and described by Doymaz (2004). It was constructed from stainless steel sheets formed as a rectangular tunnel of dimensions 0.54 m 1.4 m 1.02 m. The drying tray had an area of size 0.3 m 0.3 m. In this dryer, air is owing horizontally through the samples. The dryer was adjusted to the selected temperature for about half an hour before the start of the experiments in order to achieve the steady state conditions. Then, the samples were spread in a single layer on a tray in the dryer and dried at 60, 70 and 75 C, with an average relative humidity of 514%, and a constant air velocity of 2.0 m/s. The relative humidity of air was determined by using wet and dry bulb temperatures from the psychrometric chart. The velocity of air passing through the system was measured by a 0.430 m/s range anemometer (model AM-4201, Lutron Electronic, Taipei, Taiwan). The moisture losses of sweet cherries were recorded at 30 min intervals during the drying process by a digital balance (Mettler, model BB3000, Mettler-Toledo AG, Grefensee, Switzerland) and an accuracy of 0.1 g. Drying was stopped when the moisture contents of the samples were about 0.28 0.2 kg water/kg dm. The product was cooled, packed in polyethylene bags, which were then heat-sealed and stored in incubators at ambient temperature. The experiments were repeated twice and the average of the moisture ratio at each value was used for the drawing of the drying curves.

2.3.

Mathematical modeling

The moisture ratio (MR) of the sweet cherry was calculated using the following equation: MR = Mt Me M0 Me (1)

2.
2.1.

Materials and methods

Material

Sweet cherries of the Napolitane cultivar were purchased from a local market in Istanbul, Turkey. The average diameter and weight of the sweet cherries were 2.36 0.2 cm and 7.61 0.5 g, respectively. The initial moisture content of sweet cherries was determined using a standard method (AOAC, 1990), by

where Mt , M0 and Me are the moisture content at any time of drying (kg water/kg dm), initial moisture content (kg water/kg dm) and equilibrium moisture content (kg water/kg dm), respectively. The equilibrium moisture contents of sweet cherries at different temperatures used in the drying runs were obtained by the dynamic model. About three grams of samples were exposed to 60, 70 and 75 C air temperatures in the dryer until the weight loss of sample was ceased. Then, the equilibrium moisture content of the samples were determined and used to calculate the moisture ratio. The drying curves were tted by means of ve different moisture ratio models that are widely used in most food and biological materials; namely, Lewis, Henderson and Pabis, logarithmic, Page, and Wang and Singh models. These models are generally derived by simplifying the general series solution of

food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

33

Ficks second law. Henderson and Pabis model is the rst term of a general series solution of Ficks second law. The model was used to predict the drying characteristics of corn (Henderson and Pabis, 1961). MR = a exp(kt) (2)

rate period, is shown in the following equation: M = Deff 2 M t (9)

Lewis model is a special case of the Henderson and Pabis model where the intercept is unity. It was used to describe the drying of barley (Bruce, 1985) and grape seed (Roberts et al., 2008). MR = exp(kt) (3)

The analytical solution of Ficks second law (Eq. 9) unsteady state diffusion in a spherical coordinates with the assumptions of moisture migration being by diffusion, negligible shrinkage, constant diffusion coefcients and temperature during the drying process is given as follows (Crank, 1975): 6
2 n=1

MR =

1 exp n2

n2

Deff t R2

(10)

Page model is an empirical modication of Lewis model to overcome its shortcomings. It was successfully used to describe the drying characteristics of some agricultural products (Da Silva et al., 2005; Menges and Ertekin, 2006; Hassan-Beygi et al., 2009; Singh et al., 2006; Jangam et al., 2008). MR = exp(ktn ) (4)

For long drying periods, Eq. (10) can be further simplied to only the rst term of the series. ln(MR) = ln 6
2

2D t eff R2

(11)

Another model, which is widely used for thin-layer drying studies, is the logarithmic model. The model was successfully used to describe the drying characteristics of peach, apricot and tomato (Doymaz, 2004; Kingsly et al., 2007; Xanthopoulos et al., 2007; Khazaei et al., 2008). MR = a exp(kt) + c (5)

The effective moisture diffusivity is obtained by plotting the experimental drying data in terms of ln(MR) versus time (min). From Eq. (11), a plot of ln(MR) versus time gives a straight line with a slope of (K), in which: K=
2D eff R2

(12)

2.6.

Computation of activation energy

Wang and Singh model as shown in Eq. (6) is a second order polynomial model, which has earlier been used to characterize the drying kinetics of rough rice (Wang and Singh, 1978). MR = 1 + at + bt2 (6)

The dependence of the effective diffusivity on temperature is generally described by the Arrhenius equation (Simal et al., 2005): Deff = D0 exp Ea R(T + 273.15) (13)

In the proposed models, a, b, c, n are the drying coefcients and k is the drying constant (min1 ).

2.4.

Data analysis

Here D0 is the pre-exponential factor of Arrhenius equation in m2 /s, Ea is the activation energy in kJ/mol, R is the universal gas constant in kJ/(mol K), and T is temperature in C.

The regression analysis was performed by using the STATISTICA computer program. The determination of coefcient (R2 ), reduced chi-square ( 2 ) and root mean square error (RMSE) were used in this study to evaluate the goodness of t. These parameters can be calculated by using the following equations:
2

2.7.

Rehydration ratio

N (MRexp,i i=1

MRpre,i )

Nz
1/2

(7)

RMSE =

1 N

(MRpre,i MRexp,i )
i=1

(8)

Rehydration tests were performed at 25 C in distilled water for 420 min (7 h). About 5 0.5 g dried products were placed in glass beakers containing water in the ratio 1:40 (w/w). At specied time intervals, namely, 60, 120, 180, 240, 300, 360 and 420 min, the samples were taken out and blotted with tissue paper to eliminate excess water on the surface. The weights of dried and rehydrated samples were measured with an electronic digital balance (Precisa, model XB220A, Precisa Instruments AG, Dietikon, Switzerland) having a sensitivity of 0.001 g. The rehydration ratio (RR) was calculated as follows: RR = Mass of rehydrated sample . Mass of dried sample (14)

In these equations, N is the number of observations, z is the number of constants, MRexp and MRpre are the experimental and predicted moisture ratios, respectively. The higher R2 values and the lower 2 and RMSE values are the goodness of t (Sacilik et al., 2006; Hassan-Beygi et al., 2009; Sobukola, 2009).

3.
3.1.

Results and discussion

Effect of pre-treatment

2.5.

Determination of effective moisture diffusivity

Ficks second law of diffusion equation, symbolized as a massdiffusion equation for drying agricultural products in a falling

Figs. 13 present variations in the moisture content as a function of drying time at 60, 70 and 75 C. It is clear that the moisture content decreases continuously with drying time. The pre-treatment had a signicant effect on the moisture

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food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

Fig. 1 Effect of pre-treatment solution on the drying of sweet cherries at 60 C. content of the samples. The sweet cherries dipped in alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate before the drying process was found to have a shorter drying time compared to the control ones. From Figs. 13, it is observed that the drying times required for reducing the moisture content of pre-treated samples were 1230, 660 and 600 min, at air temperatures of 60, 70 and 75 C, respectively. Corresponding values for the control samples were 1590, 930 and 750 min at same temperatures, respectively. Pre-treated caused a decrease in the drying times by about 22.6, 19.5 and 20%, at air temperatures of 60, 70 and 75 C, respectively. Consequently, the experimental results demonstrate the importance of the alkali pre-treatment in reducing the mass-transfer resistance of the sweet cherry skin. A similar effect of ethyl oleate has been found in the drying of other waxy fruits such as grape (Saravacos et al., 1988; Kostaropoulos and Saravacos, 1995; Pahlavanzadeh et al., 2001; Doymaz, 2006), apricot (Doymaz, 2004) and sour cherry (Tarhan et al., 2006).

Fig. 3 Effect of pre-treatment solution on the drying of sweet cherries at 75 C.

3.2.

Effect of air drying temperature

The drying times taken to reduce the moisture contents of the sweet cherries from initial moisture of 3.34 0.2 kg water/kg dm to nal moisture of 0.28 0.2 kg water/kg dm are demonstrated in Figs. 13. It is clearly shown that the drying air temperature had a signicant effect on the drying time. From the range analysis of the experiments, it can be found that the drying time is longest at 60 C, and shortest at 75 C. From Figs. 13, it was observed that the drying time taken to nal moisture was 1590, 930 and 750 min at 60, 70 and 75 C for the control samples, respectively, and 1230, 660 and 600 min at the same temperatures for the pre-treated samples, respectively. Based on these results, the required drying times for the sweet cherry samples to reach a moisture content of 0.28 0.2 kg water/kg dm in order to obtain safe storage, were found to vary from 600 to 1590 min depending on the drying temperature and pre-treatments. Drying times were reduced by about 52.8 and 51.1% for the control and pre-treated samples, respectively, when the drying temperature was raised from 60 to 75 C. The effect of temperature on drying time was similar, in accordance with earlier studies made on grape (Eissen et al., 1985), sapota (Jangam et al., 2008), okra (Sobukola, 2009), strawberry leather (Lee and Hsieh, 2008), and apple (Vega-Glvez et al., 2008).

3.3.

Mathematical modeling of drying curves

Fig. 2 Effect of pre-treatment solution on the drying of sweet cherries at 70 C.

The ve thin-layer drying models were compared in terms of the statistical parameters R2 , 2 and RMSE. The statistical analysis values are summarized in Tables 13. In all cases, the R2 values for the models were greater than 0.95, indicating a good t. The R2 values varied between 0.9550 and 0.9996, 2 values between 0.00003 and 0.00252, and RMSE values between 0.01999 and 0.27398. Generally, Page model gave a higher R2 and lower 2 and RMSE values (Tables 13). Thus, it was selected to represent the thin-layer drying characteristics of sweet cherries. Figs. 4 and 5 compare the experimental data with the predicted ones using Page model for sweet cherries at 60, 70 and 75 C. The prediction using the model showed MR values banded along a straight line, which proved the

food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

35

Table 1 Statistical results from various thin-layer drying models at 60 C. Code

CONTROL

Model names
Lewis (k: 0.00134) Henderson and Pabis (a: 1.07709; k: 0.00145) Logarithmic (a: 1.23426, k: 0.00100, c: 0.20120) Page (k: 0.00021, n: 1.27348) Wang and Singh (a: 0.00104; b: 0.00000) Lewis (k: 0.00181) Henderson and Pabis (a: 1.06852, k: 0.00195) Logarithmic (a: 1.17319, k: 0.00147, c: 0.13972) Page (k: 0.00043, n: 1.22531) Wang and Singh (a: 0.00142; b: 0.00000)

R2
0.9796 0.9880 0.9970 0.9991 0.9986 0.9550 0.9920 0.9979 0.9994 0.9994

RMSE
0.27398 0.20551 0.10020 0.04879 0.06882 0.20595 0.14530 0.0729 0.03834 0.03404

0.00167 0.00100 0.00025 0.00007 0.00011 0.00120 0.00067 0.00018 0.00004 0.00004

AEEO

Table 2 Statistical results from various thin-layer drying models at 70 C. Code

CONTROL

Model names
Lewis (k: 0.00210) Henderson and Pabis (a: 1.07833; k: 0.00228) Logarithmic (a: 1.46862, k: 0.00117, c: 0.45126) Page (k: 0.00026, n: 1.33397) Wang and Singh (a: 0.00156; b: 0.00001) Lewis (k: 0.00310) Henderson and Pabis (a: 1.08269, k: 0.00339) Logarithmic (a: 1.37077, k: 0.00198, c: 0.33768) Page (k: 0.00044, n: 1.33797) Wang and Singh (a: 0.00234; b: 0.00001)

R2
0.9706 0.9801 0.9990 0.9970 0.9995 0.9731 0.9837 0.9980 0.9994 0.9981

RMSE
0.24791 0.20315 0.03949 0.07539 0.02883 0.20014 0.15313 0.05011 0.02559 0.04684

0.00252 0.00176 0.00008 0.00026 0.00005 0.00242 0.00154 0.00019 0.00004 0.00017

AEEO

suitability of these models in describing the drying characteristics of sweet cherries. Similar observations have been reported by Menges and Ertekin (2006) and Hassan-Beygi et al. (2009).

3.4.

Effective moisture diffusivity

The determined values of the effective moisture diffusivity values are shown in Fig. 6 and were found to range between 5.683 1010 and 1.544 109 m2 /s. The moisture diffusivity was affected by the pre-treatment solution and air temperature. It can be seen that Deff values for the pretreated samples are greater than those obtained for the control samples under the same drying conditions. The increase of Deff in pre-treated with ethyl oleate samples is attributed to the partial chemical breakdown of the sample skins resulting in higher permeability of water (Saravacos and Raouzeos, 1986). The values of Deff are reported to vary between 2.4 and 12.1 109 m2 /s for the drying of

strawberry leathers in the temperature range of 5080 C (Lee and Hsieh, 2008), (0.656.92) 1010 m2 /s for quince 3555 C (Kaya et al., 2007), (6.7612.6) 1010 m2 /s for apricot at 55 C (Doymaz, 2004), (3.3290) 1010 m2 /s for berberis at 5070 C (Aghbashlo et al., 2009), (1.515.32) 1010 m2 /s for cactus pears at 4070 C (Ruiz-Cebrera et al., 2008), (2.46.22) 1010 m2 /s for grapes at 5070 C (Pahlavanzadeh et al., 2001), and (4.529.63) 1010 m2 /s for strawberries at 6085 C (Akpinar and Bicer, 2006). These values are consistent with the present estimated Deff values for sweet cherries.

3.5.

Activation energy

The activation energy was calculated by plotting ln Deff versus the reciprocal of the temperature (1/(T + 273.15)), and presented in Fig. 7. Eqs. (15) and (16) show the effect of temperature on Deff of the pre-treated and the control samples with following coefcients:

Table 3 Statistical results from various thin-layer drying models at 75 C. Code

CONTROL

Model names
Lewis (k: 0.00332) Henderson and Pabis (a: 1.08342; k: 0.00361) Logarithmic (a: 1.13621, k: 0.00305, c: 0.07569) Page (k: 0.00075, n: 1.25665) Wang and Singh (a: 0.00260; b: 0.00002) Lewis (k: 0.00360) Henderson and Pabis (a: 1.08959, k: 0.00394) Logarithmic (a: 1.26850, k: 0.00265, c: 0.022145) Page (k: 0.00052, n: 1.33972) Wang and Singh (a: 0.00275; b: 0.00002)

R2
0.9827 0.9914 0.9945 0.9986 0.9968 0.9739 0.9851 0.9961 0.9996 0.9967

RMSE
0.17426 0.11634 0.09655 0.04582 0.06287 0.20300 0.14882 0.07157 0.01999 0.06053

0.00160 0.00082 0.00055 0.00012 0.00030 0.00250 0.00150 0.00040 0.00003 0.00032

AEEO

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food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

Fig. 6 Variation of effective diffusivity with drying temperature.

Fig. 4 Comparison of experimental and predicted moisture ratio by Page model at different temperatures for the pre-treated samples. For AEEO samples: Deff = 3.796 102 exp For control samples: Deff = 3.138 103 exp 5178.1 T + 273.15 (R2 : 0.9783) (16) 5914.9 T + 273.15 (R2 : 0.9911) (15)

The activation energy values were found to be 43.05 and 49.17 kJ/mol for the control and pre-treated samples, respectively. They are higher than the activation energies of cactus Fig. 7 Arrhenius-type relationship between effective diffusivity and reciprocal absolute temperature.

pear drying (33.56 kJ/mol) (Ruiz-Cebrera et al., 2008) and g drying (40.95 kJ/mol) (Xanthopoulos et al., 2009), and lower than the activation energy of berberis drying (130.6 kJ/mol) (Aghbashlo et al., 2009).

3.6.

Rehydration characteristics

Fig. 5 Comparison of experimental and predicted moisture ratio by Page model at different temperatures for the control samples.

Rehydration is one of the important properties used to measure the quality of dried food materials. It also can be considered as a measure of the injury caused by drying or treatment preceding drying. Slow or poor rehydrability would result in the internal collapse of the structure (Al-Khuseibi et al., 2005). The results for the rehydration ratio were calculated from Eq. (14) and plotted against rehydration time, as shown in Fig. 8. Rehydration ratios of the pre-treated samples were higher than those of control samples at all drying temperatures. This factor adversely inuenced the rehydration of pre-treated sweet cherries. The rehydration tests show that the rehydration capacities of dried pre-treated and control samples at 70 C are higher than those of dried ones at other temperatures.

food and bioproducts processing 8 9 ( 2 0 1 1 ) 3138

37

Fig. 8 Rehydration ratios at 25 C for sweet cherries dried at various temperatures.

4.

Conclusions

The effect of alkali emulsion of ethyl oleate on the drying of sweet cherries under hot air was studied. The increase in air drying temperature decreased the drying time. Pre-treated sweet cherries have shorter drying times than control samples at all air drying temperatures. Page model was found to be a better model for describing the drying characteristics of sweet cherries at all temperatures. The effective moisture diffusivities were determined to be between 5.683 1010 and 1.544 109 m2 /s for sweet cherry samples in the temperature range of 6075 C. Effective diffusivities of the pre-treated samples were higher than those of the control samples. The activation energies for the control and pre-treated samples were estimated to be 43.05 and 49.17 kJ/mol, respectively. The rehydration ratio values of the pre-treated samples were higher than those of control samples at all drying temperatures.

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