Comparison of mathematical models to describe the drying kinetics of minimally processed ponkan tangerine / Comparação de modelos matemáticos para descrição da cinética de secagem de tangerina ponkan minimamente processada

Abstract

Ponkan is one of the most popular freshly consumed tangerines in Brazil. Thus, postharvest technologies that prolong the shelf life of this fruit, such as drying, are desired and widely studied, promoting the preservation of fruit quality, resulting in long storage periods. The aim of thus study was to determine and model the drying kinetics of the Ponkan tangerine at temperatures of 60, 70 and 80 °C, and fit the best mathematical model that represents the behavior of experimental data. The experiment used a completely randomized design, where treatments were drying temperatures of 60, 70 and 80 ºC, with four repetitions. The mathematical models diffusion approximation, two terms, two-term exponential, Henderson and Pabis, modified Henderson and Pabis, logarithmic, Midilli, Newton, Page, and Thompson and Verma were fit to experimental data. Mathematical modeling was developed in Statistica 12.0 software. Drying time was found to be inversely proportional to temperature. Page's mathematical model fit satisfactorily to experimental data for drying at 60 and 70 ºC. For a temperature of 80 ºC, the Midilli mathematical model best fit drying kinetics.