Modelling the Drying Kinetics of Monkey Cola (Cola Parchycarpa)

Abstract

The need for storage is one of the crucial factors considered in food preservation, due to deterioration and spoilage of food materials. Drying as a means of preservation has been adopted in processing of food materials by exposing the material to heat to heat for the reduction of moisture content to the level unfavorable for mold growth. Monkey cola is a nutritional indigenous seed known with its pleasant taste and medicinal values. Moisture kinetics and drying time were used to examine the drying characteristics of Monkey cola seed. Monkey kola seed and a suitable mathematical model was developed by fitting the drying data gotten from the open sun drying and oven drying of monkey kola at different temperatures (40, 50, 65, 60 and 700C) to properly predict the drying characteristics of the seed using statistical tools. This gives the highest R₂ and lowest RMSE and provided the long-term performance of correlation for each degree of temperature. The best model fitted for each temperature at 40, 50, 65, 60 and 700C for oven drying were Diffusion approach, Verma, Hii, and Midili Kucuk models, respectively, and Midili Kucuk model, for open sun drying. Temperature dependence of the effective diffusivity (Deff) coefficient was expressed by an Arrhenius type relationship and the activation energy (Ea) was determined.