Drying Profile of Coarse Coconut Palm Sap Sugar Using Simple Air-Oven Dryer

Abstract

The influence of different drying temperatures and drying loads on the drying characteristics of coarse coconut palm sap sugar were investigated in this study. The granulated coconut palm sap sugars were dried using an air-oven dryer at three temperature variations (60, 70, 80 o C) and three different drying loads of 5, 10, and 15 kg. The drying profile of the coarse coconut palm sap sugar was determined by monitoring moisture loss over the drying period. The result showed that the moisture removal rate increased with the drying temperature. However, increasing the drying load from 10 to 15 kg did not significantly affect the drying rate at all temperature variations, resulting in the highest drying efficiency achieved at the highest drying temperature of 15 kg. Furthermore, the predicted moisture content calculated using the obtained drying rate constant value showed a high correlation with the reference value denoted by the R 2 over 0.95 for all experimental conditions. The results have demonstrated that different drying approaches may affect the drying period of coconut palm sugar using a simple air-oven dryer.