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Drying Characteristics of Carrot under Microwave-vacuum Condition

Published by the American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, St. Joseph, Michigan www.asabe.org

Citation:  Paper number  MBSK 06-217,  ASABE/CSBE North Central Intersectional Meeting . (doi: 10.13031/2013.22375) @2006
Authors:   Sabyasachi Mishra, Anup Rana, Anand Tripathy, Venkatesh Meda
Keywords:   Microwave, vacuum, drying, carrot

Drying with moisture reduction provides extended shelf life to fresh fruits and vegetables. Drying by conventional dryers at higher temperature usually results in overall quality loss due to surface drying and is also energy intensive. Use of microwave has been reported for better bulk drying of sensitive biomaterials. Advanced research suggested that addition of vacuum to microwaves offers all advantages of dielectric heating but at a reduced processing temperature being the function of operating pressure. In addition, a volumetric heat transfer mechanism coupled with drying in vacuum provides an ideal low-temperature drying technique resulting in better organoleptic quality. In this research microwave under vacuum was used to study the drying characteristics of carrot. Four different process variables such as microwave power (P), vacuum level (V), rotational speed (R) of the sample holder and time of drying (t) were considered. These variables were adjusted to get different drying conditions. Under these conditions experiments were done to find out the weight loss, moisture content, drying curve and quality parameters for carrot. Effects of the process variables on the drying and the dried products of carrot is presented and discussed. The results show that the target moisture content could be achieved in much lesser time of drying when vacuum is supplemented to microwave drying.

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