THE EFFECT OF SHRINKAGE DURING DRYING OF

POTATO SPHERES AND THE EFFECT OF DRYING

TEMPERATURE ON VITAMIN C RETENTION
C.P. MCLAUGHLIN and T. R. A. MAGEE* (
member
)
Department of Life Sciences, The University of Limerick, Limerick, Republic of Ireland
*Department of Chemical Engineering, The Queens University of Belfast, Belfast, UK
S
hrinkage data determined for drying potato spheres was compared to three models
relating shrinkage to moisture content. Best results were obtained using a simple linear
model. Drying of potato spheres was found to be almost ideally three dimensional and
drying rate curves were found to contain two distinct falling rate periods. Having related
shrinkage to moisture content and thus time, a drying curve was predicted using the Fickian
model incorporating a Fourier number (accounting for shrinkage). A drying rate curve was also
generated using a constant diffusion coefcient (assuming no shrinkage). Both models were
found to describe the 1st falling rate period accurately, while the model accounting for
shrinkage best described the 2nd falling rate period. Vitamin C was found to degrade
exponentiallyduring drying. An empirical equation was developed which described vitamin C
degradation well over the temperature range 30-60C.
Keywords: shrinkage; drying rate curves; effective diffusion coefcient; vitamin C; potato
spheres
INTRODUCTION
Drying is used as a means of increasing product stability
and increasing ease of distribution and storage. General
drying rate curves presented in literature contain a constant
rate period followed by a falling rate period. During the
constant rate period the surface of the product will remain
moist, indicating that external resistances are greater than
internal resistances to mass transfer. During the falling rate
period, free water is no longer evident on the product
surface and thus water for evaporation must now travel
through the body of the product to the surface. In such
cases, internal resistances are greater than external
resistances to mass transfer
1
. Accurate predictions of
drying rates of foodstuffs are essential in process design.
The classical means of describing the mechanism and rate
during the drying process in the absence of external
resistances to mass transfer is by Ficks 2nd law of
unsteady state diffusion which, in the case of radial
diffusion, is given as:
dC
dt
=
1
r
2
d
dr
Dr
2
dC
dr
(1)
where C is the concentration of diffusing substance
(kmol m
23
), t is time (s), r is the diffusional path length
(m), D is the diffusion coefcient for drying (m
2
s
21
).
Assuming the following initial, nal and boundary
conditions:
X = X
0
0 <r
t
>r
0
t = 0
dX/dr = 0 r
t
= t
0
t >0
X = X
e
r
t
= 0 t >0
then, in the case of a spherical object, the following solution
can be derived
2
W =
X 2X
e
X
o
2X
e
=
6
p
2

n= 1
1
n
2
exp
n
2
p
2
Dt
r
2
0
(2)
where W is the dimensionless water content; X, X
e
and X
o
are the experimental, equilibrium and initial moisture
contents, (kg kg
21
); n is an element in the series; r
o
is the
initial sphere diameter, (m).
In cases where t is large and r
o
is small, then the terms in
the series where n >1 are negligible, thus equation (2)
reduces to:
W =
X 2X
e
X
o
2X
e
=
t
p
2
exp
p
2
Dt
r
2
o
(3)
This equation allows a constant diffusion coefcient for
drying to be calculated, assuming no change in the sample
volume during the drying process. In the case of drying
foodstuffs and other biological materials, shrinkage occurs
simultaneously with mass transfer. It can therefore be
assumed that the rate and degree of shrinkage will affect the
drying process and the diffusion coefcient. With a view to
increasing understanding and for the modelling of the
drying process, the importance of incorporating a shrinkage
factor into the diffusion coefcient for drying becomes
apparent
3
.
A variety of models have been proposed in literature to
describe shrinkage during drying. For the purposes of this
work, three models relating shrinkage to moisture content
were chosen for comparison to experimental data. The
138
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Institution of Chemical Engineers
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part C, September 1998
models are:
Model 1: S
b
=
X 10.8
X
0
10.8
Kilpatrick et al.
4
(4)
Model 2: S
b
=
r
0
(1 1X)
r(1 1X
0
)
Perez and Calvero
5
(5)
Model 3: S
b
= a 1bX Linear model (6)
where:
S
b
(V/V
0
) is the shrinkage ratio; r
0
and r are the initial
sample density and the sample density at any moisture
content (kg m
23
); a, b are constants.
One main quality aspect associated with the dehydration
of potatoes is the degradation of vitamin C or ascorbic acid.
Ascorbic acid is found in a variety of forms, the most
common of which are l-ascorbic acid and its oxidized form
l-dehydroascorbic acid. Both of these forms are biologically
active and act as a redox system. Vitamin C performs a
multitude of functions within the human body, and indeed,
all the cells in the body must utilize vitamin C for optimum
functionality. Many methods have been proposed to
determine vitamin C content. To give suitable results, any
method which is used must determine both ascorbic acid
and dehydroascorbic acid, to give an overall representation
of vitamin C content. Chemical methods, although still
popular, have been superseded somewhat (due to interfering
complexes in foods) by high performance liquid chromato-
graphy (HPLC) which tends to be more sensitive. The most
appropriate method of vitamin C determination would
appear to be a HPLC method where ion-exclusion
chromatographic separation occurs in a column using a
polystyrene-divinylbenzene packing material. This method
is capable of determining the total vitamin C content
quantitatively, in both cooked and uncooked potatoes,
rapidly and sensitively
6
. Several authors, including Banga
and Singh
7
and Mishkin et al.
8
, have attempted to optimize
the air drying of food with respect to nutrients, and in
particular vitamin C retention. In both cases, it was
suggested that vitamin C degradation follows rst order
reaction kinetics. This method of degradation was also
reported by Kirk et al.
9
, who suggested that ascorbic acid
stability was a function of water activity and storage
temperature, with ascorbic acid being most stable at low
storage temperature and water activity. Haralampu and
Karel
1 0
proposed an exponential function for the deteriora-
tion of ascorbic acid at low water activities.
Mohamed and Hussein
1 1
showed that vitamin C is easily
destroyed and is adversely affected by long drying times.
Wang et al.
1 2
attempted to fortify potato akes prior to
drying with ascorbic acid; approximately 50% of the added
ascorbic acid was destroyed during processing. The
remaining half was lost during storage and reconstitution.
Under the same condition 70 - 80% of the vitamin C was
retained when potatoes were fortied with 2-phosphorylated
L-ascorbate. The purpose of this work is to establish the
effect of drying temperature on vitamin C degradation.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
The Pentland Dell variety of potato was used in all
investigations. The potatoes were obtained from a single
supplier, stored in darkened conditions and maintained at a
temperature of 4C until required. The potatoes were
washed in lukewarm water and peeled. A melon-baller
(d =22mm) was used to obtain spherical samples from the
central medulla region of potato, where the cell structure is
most uniform. Sphere diameters were measured with the aid
of a digital micrometer screw gauge, those falling outside of
a 5% tolerance level were rejected. To minimize the
enzymatic browning, all samples were dipped for one
minute in a solution of 0.45% sodium metabisulphite. This
was sufcient to eliminate browning completely. Drying
investigations were carried out in a bench scale uid bed
dryer (PRL Engineering Co Model FBD/L72). This was
used as a source of drying air with a variable velocity and a
controllable drying air temperature.
Drying was carried out at 40C and a supercial air
velocity of 1ms
21
, which was determined by transversing
the top of the dryer with an anemometer (Solomat, MPM
500). All drying investigations were performed under
identical experimental conditions. Four spheres were
placed on a wooden skewer and were allowed to equilibrate
to 40C by placing them in a thermostatically-controlled
water bath in a sealed plastic sample bag. Samples were then
positioned half way up the loading vessel of the dryer, with
the wooden skewer perpendicular to the direction of drying
air ow. During drying, samples were removed and weighed
periodically on a digital, quick-read balance (Sartorius Ltd,
model 1475 MP8) to an accuracy of + 0.001g. The time
taken to carry out this weighing procedure was only a few
seconds and was considered to be insignicant when
compared with the overall drying times; therefore any
error as a result of moisture loss during weighing was
assumed to be negligible. To obtain the bone dry mass of
potatoes, samples of the potato from which the spheres had
been removed were weighed and placed on a watch glass in
a ventilated air oven (Gallenkamp, Model OV-330) at
104C for 24 hours. Volume changes during drying were
calculated over the time frame by means of buoyancy forces
in toluene.
1 3
Each investigation included 8 spheres and was
repeated in triplicate. Vitamin C content was determined by
a HPLC method as described by Graham and Annette.
6
Spheres used for vitamin C content determination were
dried at dry bulb temperatures of 30, 45 and 60C
respectively.
RESULT AND DISCUSSION
Figure 1 shows a comparison between the experimental
plot obtained and the Kilpatrick; Perez and Calvero; and the
linear models. The goodness of t for each model was
determined by the calculation of the mean relative
percentage deviation modules (E). This modulus is dened
as follows:
E % =
100
N
N
i= 1
m
i
2m
pi
m
i
(7)
where N is the number of experimental data; m
i
are the
experimental values; and m
p i
are the predicted values.
It is generally assumed that a good t is obtained when
E <10 %
1 4 , 1 5
.
In this work, the model which gave the best tted
experimental results was the linear model (E% = 4.52). The
constants a and b in the model were calculated as 0.1492
139 THE EFFECT OF SHRINKAGE DURING DRYING OF POTATO SPHERES
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part C, September 1998
and 0.1726 respectively. The Kilpatrick model also gave a
good t (E% = 6.35), while the Perez and Calvero model
gave a poor t (E% = 17.77). These results are in
agreement with work reported by other authors including
Khraisheh et al.
1 6
, who reported good agreement between
the Kilpatrick and linear models and experimental results.
However, Wang and Brennan
1 7
, reported good agreement
with the Perez and Calvero model. Figure 1 also shows
shrinkage varying linearly with moisture content, above a
moisture content of 0.5. Below this moisture content
shrinkage stops and the foodstuff becomes rigid and brittle.
This is thought to be a result of microscopic changes in the
foodstuff and is known as the glass transition point. This
presents no practical problems in the drying of high
moisture content foodstuffs such as potatoes, but may
result in the failure of low moisture foods such as crackers
during storage.
A fourth model relating changes in volume to changes in
surface area during shrinkage was compared to the
experimental results
1 8
:
A
A
0
=
V
V
0
2
3
(8)
The Suzuki et al. model suggests that shrinkage is equal to
the volume of water lost during evaporation and that
shrinkage is equal in all directions. The goodness of t for
the Suzuki et al. model was calculated as E% = 5.4. This
indicates a good t and suggests that shrinkage in the case of
potato spheres is close to ideally three dimensional.
Madamba et al.
1 9
suggested that a power value of 0.448
in equation (8) produced a good t with experimental data,
indicating that the shrinkage of garlic is neither ideally three
dimensional nor one dimensional. The author suggested that
shrinkage in garlic was bre orientated.
Another important parameter in dryer design is the
surface area to volume ratio, A
v
. Ratti
2 0
reported that this
parameter was independent of drying conditions, but was
dependent on sample geometry, water content and moisture
content. Figure 2 shows a plot of A
v
/A
v 0
v X/X
0
for potato
spheres, discs and cylinders. Data was tted to a third degree
polynomial equation of the form:
A
v
/A
v0
= a(X/X
0
)
3
1b(X/X
0
)
2
1c(X/X
0
) 1d (9)
Regression coefcients calculated from this equation are
shown in Table 1.
The values for d in Table 1 indicate that for potatoes,
which represent a homogeneous product, drying shifts from
one dimensional to three dimensional as the geometry of
sample shifts from disks to spheres.
Having obtained a relationship which allows the calcula-
tion of sphere radius at a given moisture content and thus
time, an effective diffusion coefcient for drying, incorpor-
ating shrinkage, can be obtained by applying the method of
slopes to equation (2). To apply the method of slopes, the
experimental drying curve(lnW v t) is compared to the
theoretical curve (lnW v F
0
), where:
F
0
=
Dt
r
2
t
(10)
where F
0
is the Fourier number and r
t
is the radius at any
time (m).
The slopes of the experimental drying curve and the
theoretical drying curve were estimated at given moisture
contents using numerical differentiation. Effective diffusion
coefcients were calculated from the equation
2 1
D
eff
=
[
(d ln W/dt)
exp
/(d ln W/dF
0
)
th]
r
2
0
(11)
where r
0
is the initial sample radius (m).
Drying was found to have no constant rate period. The
falling rate period for drying seemed to consist of two
distinct periods. The appearance of two falling rate periods
can be explained in terms of the mechanism of water
bindingin potatoes. The 1st falling rate period represents the
removal free and weakly-bound moisture, while the 2nd
falling rate period represents the removal chemically-bound
moisture. Diffusion coefcients of 11.0

10
210
and
6.13

10
210
m
2
s
1
were calculated for the 1st and 2nd
140 McLAUGHLIN and MAGEE
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part C, September 1998
Table 1. Regression coefcients calculated from equation (9).
Geometry a b c d R
2
Disk
a
3.938 8.639 6.683 2.952 0.946
Cylinder
a
1.661 3.661 3.194 2.175 0.948
Sphere 0.2158 0.0533 0.858 1.589 0.9943
a
Ratti
20
Figure 1. Experimental shrinkage as a function of moisture content
compared to three shrinkage models.
Figure 2. Experimental and predicted values of A
v
/Av
0
v X/X
0
for potatoes
of different shapes.
falling rate periods respectively from Figure 3. Using the
linear shrinkage model, Fourier numbers were calculated.
Predicted weights compared to experimental weights over
the drying period are shown in Figure 4 for both falling rate
periods. Figure 4 also shows the predicted weights obtained
from the Fickian model neglecting shrinkage. It can be seen
in Table 2 that both models describe drying well during the
1st falling rate period. The 2nd falling rate period is best
described using the shrinkage model.
Figure 5 shows the effect of air temperature on vitamin C
retention in dried potato spheres. Vitamin C concentration
decreases with drying time, and the degradation rate
increases with increasing temperature. Similar results have
been reported in literature by various authors including
Wang et al.
1 2
. It was assumed that the degradation of
vitamin C followed an exponential decay of the form
1 0
:
[
vitC
]
= a exp
2bv
(12)
where [vitC] is the vitamin C concentration(mg l
21
); a is the
initial vitamin C concentration (mg l
21
); b is a constant; vis
the drying time (mins)
The constant b was found to be linearly related to
temperature:
b = 4.67T

10
25
10.00067 (R
2
= 0.993) (13)
where T is temperature, (C) .
The following empirical equations were established for
the degradation of vitamin C at the temperatures used:
30C :
[
vitC
]
= 20.279 exp(20.0021v) (R
2
= 0.981)
(14)
45C :
[
vitC
]
= 20.831 exp(20.0027v) (R
2
= 0.987)
(15)
60C :
[
vitC
]
= 21.372 exp(20.0035v) (R
2
= 0.986)
(16)
Predicted values of vitamin C concentrationat various times
and temperatures calculated from equations (14)(16) show
141 THE EFFECT OF SHRINKAGE DURING DRYING OF POTATO SPHERES
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part C, September 1998
Table 2. E% values for the Fickian model of drying incorporating and
neglecting shrinkage.
Model E% incorporating E% neglecting
shrinkage shrinkage
1st falling rate period 3.5 1.63
2nd falling rate period 5.9 10.9
Figure 3. Dimensionless water content v time for the drying of potato
spheres.
Figure 4. Predicted and experimental drying curves incorporating and
neglecting shrinkage.
Figure 5. Vitamin C degradation during drying at different temperatures.
good agreement with experimentally determined concentra-
tions of vitamin C shown in Figure 6.
CONCLUSIONS
Shrinkage during drying was found to be directly propor-
tional to product moisture content and a simple linear model
was found to best describe the relationship between
shrinkage and moisture content.
Shrinkage during drying was found to be almost ideally
three dimensional.
A model to describe a drying curve incorporating shrinkage
was found to t better to experimental results than a model
using constant diffusion coefcients.
Vitamin C degradation during drying was found to follow
exponential decay curve. The rate of vitamin C decay was
found to increase with temperature.
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ADDRESS
Correspondence concerning this paper should be addressed to Dr T.R.A.
Magee, Department of Chemical Engineering, The Queens University of
Belfast, David Keir Building, Stranmillis Road, Belfast, BT9 5AG,
Northern Ireland.
The manuscript was received 2 February 1998 and accepted for
publication after revision 7 May 1998.
142 McLAUGHLIN and MAGEE
Trans IChemE, Vol 76, Part C, September 1998
Figure 6. Relationship between predicted and experimental vitamin C
concentrations.