1

DRYING OF FRUITS AND VEGETABLES

OVERVIEW ON SOME BASIC PRINCIPLES AND APLICATIONS











Antonio Mulet

Universidad Politcnica de Valencia

2


INTRODUCTION


Drying is one of the oldest preservation processes available to the mankind, one that we
can track since prehistoric times. In today food market dried foods play an important
role in the food supply chain. As for fruits and vegetables it can be estimated that they
constitute about 1% of the total drying in the food industry, by large being the grains the
most important. The main feature of this process consists on lowering the water content
in order to avoid or slow down food spoilage by microorganism. At this point some
understanding can arise derived from the vocabulary employed, common words found
are drying or dehydration, or even dewatering. Dewatering is usually employed
for the process of lowering the water content without phase change by using physical
means, we can think about dewatering by centrifugation. Drying and dehydration are
used commonly in the literature as synonymous, nevertheless as pointed out by Vega-
Mercado et al. (2001) in some legislations those words are used to distinguish the level
of water content. For instance the US Department of Agriculture considers dehydrated
foods those with water content lower than 2.5 % d.b., and dried those with a higher
content. Usually the water content of foods (fruits and vegetables) currently consumed
will fall in the category of dried.

Lowering the water content can be achieved by different ways and means. When
considering taking out water from a solid food one can consider transferring water from
the solid to a liquid or to a gas. Thus different methodologies arise. We will concentrate
on a main field considering the drying medium as being gaseous and considering fruits
and vegetables as particulate solids. Of course one can dry pulps and purees, the drying
of slurries is nevertheless not very common for fruits and vegetables, those being
mostly concentrated by evaporation or membrane separation.

In any case there is water transfer from a dense phase (solid or slurry) to a light phase
like air or vapour. Under these circumstances one can think on considering the transport
processes in both phases, the dense phase being the food and the light phase the drying
medium, usually referred as internal and external medium. The associated resistances
being known as internal and external, for both heat or mass transfer.

When considering transferring water from a solid/liquid to a gas a phase change occurs,
thus high energy consumption is involved. Energy consumption is being one of the
major concerns in drying not only for its cost but also for the associated environmental
effects. Nevertheless the food industry does not use drying intensive processes like the
paper or ceramic industries. It should also be noted that drying of foods and vegetables
is usually carried out in a disperse way thus minimizing the direct environmental
impact. Because using energy is unavoidable the impact associated to energy
consumption only can be tempered by using renewable resources. The use of renewable
resources, like solar drying, is to be considered by the food industries not only because
could be a good practice due to its distributed character but also because there is a
market niche for the so called environmentally friendly natural products as a part of a
global concern on quality. Big firms tend to disregard this market although the rising
trend could change their politics in the future. In general, people in any country,
regardless their degree of development, show a concern on food quality.
3

Although the primary objective of drying is preservation, quality aspects are more and
more taken into account, in fact according to the process carried out one may end up
with very different products. As it is well known food nutrient degradation, like any
other chemical/biochemical reaction depends on temperature. According to the food
composition the material is more or less prone to nutrient degradation, the use of
different drying technologies and process conditions for nutrient and in general quality
preservation is a must (Chou and Chua, 2001; Achanta and Okos,2000).

The industrial development of drying by using hot air dates back to the later part of the
XVIII century, the equilibrium between the solid water content and the air water content
was soon recognized as being of paramount importance for the drying process. Also the
long shelf life of dried foods was linked to their low water content. In the last century it
was recognized that the important factor was not the water content but the water
availability for spoilage reactions. Living beings reactions take place on an aqueous
medium, thus if water content is lowered those reactions, mainly ageing or microbial
spoilage, are disturbed or even interrupted. The water availability was shown to be
linked to the water activity concept, this being the equilibrium relative moisture in the
gas phase. As a consequence the knowledge sorption isotherms have been and remain
an important field of research. Compilations of food isotherms exist, maybe one of the
first and well known is the one that was carried out by Chirife (1982). A very important
step in drying knowledge was the linking of the water activity to the growing of some
microorganisms. There are key elements that should be considered like water activity,
dehydration mechanism, physical and chemical changes during drying or storage, glass
transition temperatures These elements along the kind of food involved and
production capacity sought will be the factors to consider in selecting a drier.


WATER ACTIVITY


The water activity concept constitutes one of the main theoretical advancements in
drying during the last century. Its importance has been highlighted in the literature for
the design and operation of driers as well as for dried food preservation. A main effort
was undertaken in Europe (Cost 90 project) for clarifying different aspects on physical
properties of foods, among them water activity (Spiess and Wolf, 1983). One of the
conclusions of the Cost project was that although many models are available for
depicting food isotherms, the GAB (Guggenheim-Anderson-de Boer) was the one
providing the best results. The parameters of this model have a physical meaning, the
model can be written in different equivalent forms like the one shown in equation 1.

( ) ( ) ( ) | |
w w
w
a K C a K
a K C
1 1 1
W
W
m
+
= (1)

Where:

n m c
c
o
H H H ,
RT
H
exp C C = |
.
|

\
|
=
4
0 a
w
1
W

(
k
g

w
a
t
e
r
/
k
g

d
.
s
.
)

desorption
adsorption

n r k
k
o
L L H ,
RT
H
exp K K = |
.
|

\
|
=
Water in a fresh tissue (fruit or vegetable) is bound to different compounds or hold in
different ways, according to its physiology, although once the water molecules are taken
out during drying irreversible processes occurs. As a consequence on rehydration the
tissues do not hold water in the same way, this irreversibility is depicted through
adsorption/desorption equilibrium curves (figure 1). It should be noticed that on
rehydration (sorption) at the same water content (W), water activity (a
w
) is higher thus
water availability is higher and the food is more prone to deterioration. This
phenomenon known as hysteresis has not only physiological/chemical/biochemical but
also physical grounds. The physical phenomena are often explained as filling/emptying
pores different diameter and other phenomena explained by irreversible
reactions/changes.



















Figure 1. Sorption isotherms.

This phenomenon is very important because it shows that overdrying not only constitute
an energy waste, brings more deterioration to the product because longer drying time,
and food stability is also lowered.

As previously stated, the water sorption isotherms could be considered as a
measurement of water availability at different moisture contents. The binding energy of
water to food can be calculated by considering, among other procedures, isotherms
measured at different temperatures by using the Clausius-Clapeyron equation. For that
purpose the log of a
w
from desorption isotherms is plotted against 1/T and from the
slope (-
R
Q
s
n
) is obtained the net isosteric heat of sorption (Sanjun et al. 1994). Those
plots are carried out at different moisture contents, thus obtaining the variation of the
binding energy as affected by the water content. Due to the fact that small uncertainties
in the isotherms greatly affect these calculations the net isosteric heats of sorption
figures should be carefully examined (Chirife and Iglesias,1992). As an example are
5
shown in figure 2 isosteric heats of sorption for chufa (Cyperus esculentus) (Sanjun et
al. 1994) obtained considering two different procedures, isotherms and calorimetry
(Differential Scanning Calorimetry). Because isotherms are easy to obtain the former
procedure is often preferred.



Moisture (kg water /100 kg d.s.)
S
o
r
p
t
i
o
n

i
s
o
s
t
e
r
i
c

h
e
a
t

(
J
/
k
g
)
0
500
1000
1500
2000
2500
3000
3500
4000
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
from isotherms
from thermoanalysis


Figure 2. Isosteric heat of desorption in chufa, from equilibrium isotherms and
calorimetric data.


If only data at two temperatures are available equation (2) may be considered (Iglesias
and Chirife, 1976).


( )
( ) | |
w1 w2
1 2
2 1 s
n
a a ln
T T
T T
R Q
(

= (2)

As previously mentioned food stability was linked to the water activity on the grounds
that reactions occur according to water availability. A qualitative way of depicting these
relationships is shown in figure 3 (Labuza, 1980, 1984).


6

Figure 3. Water activity stability map (Labuza,1984).

INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL RESISTANCE


During drying simultaneously heat and mass transfer takes place. For water being
transported from the inside to the food surface and for evaporation enough energy
should be supplied. As a consequence transport phenomena involve both external and
internal resistance to heat and/or mass transfer.

It is assumed that outside the food particle property transport occur by convection and
by molecular transport inside. Convective transfer is depicted in the usual way as

Heat transfer ( )
s
T T A h Q =

Heat resistance
A h
1
(3)
Mass transfer ( )
1 a c A
c c A k N = Mass resistance
A k
1
c
(4)

Internal molecular transport needs more analysis to derive the equations, the resistance
is linked to diffusion coefficient

Conduction heat transfer resistance (flat plate)
L
kA
(5)
7
Diffusional mass transfer resistance
L
DA
(6)

The external mass resistance, in the gas phase, is frequently neglected and only the
internal resistance considered. Under this circumstances equilibrium conditions at the
surface are assumed, the surface is at the ambient temperature and solid moisture
correspond to equilibrium. For regular shaped bodies the differential equations are
easily derived and the resistance is considered thought the boundary conditions.
Equations are written in dimensionless from to allow their solutions by variable
separation this being possible only for special cases if not possible numerical methods
should be considered. The equation and the corresponding solutions were formulated by
Sherwood (1931) and can be easily found in the literature (Simal et al., 1998). For an
infinite slab the resulting equation is:


|
|
.
|

\
|

x
W
D
x
e
xe
t
W
l
(7)
Considering constant diffusivity and negligible shrinkage, equation (7) is integrated in
dimensionless form and then the average dimensionless moisture content determined as
a series solution (equation 8)


( ) | |
( ) | |

=
(
(

+
+
=
0 n
2
e
2
2

t
L
D
1 n 2 exp
1 n 2
1
2 (8)

where L is the slab half thickness if transport takes place in both sides and the thickness
if one side is insulated. In fact temperature is lower at the beginning, wet bulb
temperature, and increase during drying reaching the ambient temperature by the end of
the process, of course if there was no temperature difference heat transfer will not occur.

Because the foods are solid internal resistance to heat transfer could be assumed to be
lower than the external one. This means that temperature gradients inside the food
particle are much less important than outside. By measuring the temperature variation
and weight losses the external heat transfer coefficient can be measured (Simal et al.,
1993) by assuming internal heat transfer resistance negligible (equation 9).

) ( ) (
(
4 4
s s
s p
T T A T T h A
dt
dM
H
dt
T C M d
+ + = (9)


The results obtained could be very useful for drier design and operation. As an example
is shown in figure 4 the temperature variation during drying of potatoes.

8

Figure 4. Experimental computed and theoretical temperature variation in the centre of
10 mm potato cube during drying. Air temperature 90C, air velocity 3 m/s.


Due to the fact that inside a solid heat is usually transported easier than mass, many
times only mass transfer is considered for kinetic determination purposes. In fact both
heat and mass transfer should be considered and any means to lower both
internal/external resistances analysed for improving the process.

External heat transfer takes place by convection or radiation. If convection is the main
mechanism the boundary layer shows that if air velocity increase the rate of heat
transfer also increase, there is an increase of the heat transfer coefficient. Of course the
hotter the air the higher the heat transferred.

If radiation is involved this transport takes place independently of air velocity.
Electromagnetic waves are absorbed by the food. In this case the nature (wavelength) of
the radiation is of paramount importance due to the different absorption characteriscs
and penetration depth, the energy is transferred directly inside the solid. As a
consequence if heat transfer is to be improved one should think about the source and the
way of applying the radiation. Inside the food the internal heat resistance is not always
negligible, when drying pores appears and this difficult heat transfer. The internal
resistance is indeed expected to vary during the drying process.

As long as mass transfer transport similar to heat transfer comments could be made,
although external resistance is expected to be lower than the internal one. A gas diffuses
easily while mass transport inside a solid is difficult.

If external mass transfer resistance is important one of the most effective ways to affect
the resistance is to act on the coefficient thought air velocity, changing air relative
moisture has less effect and if this is achieved by increasing temperature could be
harmful.

The internal mass resistance will only be affected through the solid temperature (energy
transfer inside the solid). As a consequence if heat is transferred by radiation this can be
9
of great importance in cases where heat conduction is difficult. As the solid dries the
food structure changes and this can affect the drying process as a whole. Whilst initially
evaporation takes place at the surface or near the surface, when drying proceeds
evaporation occurs inside the solid and water vapour is transported to the surface.

These phenomena show that one should consider different drying periods. Initially if
there is free or slightly bound water at the surface, evaporation takes place at a constant
rate limited mainly by heat transfer, this is known as the constant rate period, the
temperature being the wet bulb temperature corresponding to drying air if velocity is
high enough. It should be noticed that in fruits and vegetables drying the constant rate
drying period is seldom observed, only when external transport resistance is important
then water can travel inside the solid at a high enough rate to maintain free water at the
surface. This was observed for instance in the drying of peppers (Sanjun at al. 2003) as
shown in figure 5. The whole peppers show a constant rate period due to the increased
external resistance linked to the pericarp, this resistance being absent on shredded
peppers the constant rate period was not detected.

















0,0E+00
5,0E-04
1,0E-03
1,5E-03
2,0E-03
2,5E-03
3,0E-03
3,5E-03
0,00 1,00 2,00 3,00 4,00
W (kg H
2
O/kg dm)
d
W
/
d
t

(
k
g

H
2
O
/
k
g

d
m

s
)



0.0E+00
2.0E-05
4.0E-05
6.0E-05
8.0E-05
1.0E-04
1.2E-04
1.4E-04
1.6E-04
1.8E-04
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00 5.00
W (kg H
2
O/kg dm)
d
W
/
d
t

(
k
g

H
2
O
/
k
g

d
m

s
)
10

Figure 5. Variation of dehydration rate with moisture content. a) Whole peppers
50C 55C 60C x 70C. b) shredded peppers50C 55C 60C x 65C.

When free water at the surface depletes water should travel from the inside to the
surface, then the drying rate decrease with time, this is known as the falling rate period.
During the falling rate more than one period could be considered due to food structure
changes, this will be illustrated by model analysis later.

From this comments one can imagine that establishing the prevailing resistance is very
important for drier design and operation in order to improve the energy efficiency and
care about product quality. It is also important for checking kinetic data from literature.
In order to show the relative importance of the resistances some ways can be
considered, this will be addressed later on.

All the changes observed in transport resistances will suggest ways and means to
establish drying strategies to the researchers and drier manufactures and operators.


MODELLING


Modelling constitute an approach for analysing drying and driers operation.
Process optimization needs modelling as a first step. Modelling in a drying process
involve several parts (Maroulis and Saravacos,2002)

- Vapour/air equilibrium (Psychrometrics)
- Moisture equilibrium (isotherms)
- Drying kinetics
- Residence time and drier conditions
- Cost analysis

Evidently all these parts are interconnected, although very often the kinetics constitute
the starting point. Models are built according to some assumptions, the most common
by large is considering mass transport inside the food as being solely driven by moisture
concentration differences, that is a Fickian mechanism (equations 8,9). It is well known
that other mechanisms coexist like capillarity and also that the food is an structured
material, nevertheless Fickian models if properly defined usually depict well the process
(Bimbenet et al. 2002). Saravacos and Maroulis (2001) gathered a large number of
diffusivity values in foods. Models of this kind can easily be found in the literature,
mostly for regular shaped geometries (Simal et al., 1998). In fact the complexity
advisable in a model depends on the use it is intended for, many times simple models
provide well enough approaches.

Because the kind of water more or less bound to the material changes during drying as
well as the food structure a model allowing describing these changes could be
necessary. Shrinkage is macroscopically evident during food drying, also at microscopic
level important changes take place, thus affecting the ratio internal/external resistance.
11
Considering these effects one can imagine that for drying optimisation (both energy and
quality) several stages could be required (Bimbenet et al. 2002, Chou and Chua, 2001).

Nevertheless very often simplified diffusion models are used and the effective
diffusivity is identified as a global figure that gives the better fit to experimental data,
(Mulet at al.,1989). Under this circumstances this parameter will include other effects.
Based on these premises if the diffusion parameter varies this will constitute an
indication of those effects, in that way if the effective diffusivity is plotted against air
velocity it can be deduced when the internal resistance prevail (Mulet et al.,1987,
Sanjun al., 2001) as shown in figure 6. From this kind of plots one can establish a
tentative limit for the air velocity during drying.




























Figure 6. Air velocity influence on D
e
.


The effect of air temperature on the drying kinetics is usually described by using the
Arrhenius law (equation 10). This effect (activation energy, E
a
) is usually well
established regardless of the complexity of the model considered (Mulet, 1994), only
the values are displaced (different D
o
) as can be observed in figure 7.


T
a
E
e D D
o e

= (10)

D
e

x

1
0

-
9

(
m
2
/
h
)
0
0,5
1
1,5
2
2,5
3
3,5
4
0 0,5 1 1,5 2 2,5 3
Air velocity (m/s)
12















Figure 7.
Influence
of air temperature on the effective diffusivity. Drying of 1 cm carrot cubes, air flow rate
G= 8000 Kg/m
2
h

The product structure changes will affect the effective diffusivity as well as the state of
the diffusing water. The moisture content being an indicator of the drying stage it is
expected to find a D
e
dependence on moisture. This fact was already pointed out by
Sherwood (1931), who observed the diffusion constant decrease with moisture
concentration. To consider this effect Crank (1975) suggested (equation 11) the
diffusion coefficient being moisture dependent.

(

+
|
.
|

\
|
+ = w c
T
b
a D exp (11)


This way of considering diffusion coefficient variation is helpful for optimization
calculations because allow to introduce moisture as an optimization constraint to define
different drying stages. Also helpful for that purpose is to establish the relative
importance of mass transfer resistances.

To determine the prevalence of internal resistance a plot of (d
ln
dt

) versus could be
considered (Mulet, 1994) for that purpose. In figures 8 (a,b) are shown two examples
(broccoli and carrots) where a constant slope is find in some instances.
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1
2,9 3 3,1 3,2 3,3 3,4
1/T x 10
3
(K)
D
e


x


1
0
6

(
m
2
/
h
)
Model A
Model B

shrinkage
unshrinkage
13
-0.0030
-0.0025
-0.0020
-0.0015
-0.0010
-0.0005
0.0000
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0

d
L
n

/
d
t
0.8 m/s
1.5 m/s
3.0 m/s
3.5 m/s


Figure 8 (a). Drying of broccoli stems at different air velocities.






Figure 8 (b). Drying of 1 cm carrot cubes.


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The prevailing internal resistance is detected from the slope of the curves, a change will
indicate an internal resistance influence. The sudden change at about 1 . 0 = could
indicate the existence of more bound water.


OPTIMIZATION


The primary goal of drying is preservation and for that purpose the end point
should be established according to the water activity concepts already mentioned.
Simultaneously of attaining the preservation goal the quality aspects should be
considered. There is a trade-off between quality and operating conditions, and a cost
(either environmental or monetary) involved. In any case suitable drying conditions
(temperatures time), could be established (Feng at al., 2002) for product quality
considering different quality indicators factors (Feng et al. 2002, Zejian et al, 2002).

As previously stated the food characteristics like moisture will influence the drying
kinetics as well as the food temperature during drying. The moisture content of the
product also will affect the exhaust air characteristics. As a consequence recycling hot
exhaust air will make sense in some instances and the recycling rate would be different
according to the product characteristics.

For operating optimization purposes a model of the drier, mass and energy balances,
should be built and then an objective is a crucial defined. The definition of the objective
function is a crucial step because this reflects the concerns to be considered. There are
many ways of defining this function. To minimize cost the most common variables
considered are recycle air ratio, air flow rate and drying air temperature (Mulet at
al.,1995, Teeboonma et al.,2002). If only costs are considered the energy cost makes
vary largely the operating conditions, constraints must be considered for quality
purposes.

For food drying the energy costs although important, but less than for other industries
like ceramics or pulp paper, more important maybe is the quality of the product.
Evidently the increased quality not always overcome the increased costs from a
consumer point of view. An increased cost but this is not necessarily true because
increased quality frequently comes from sound processing on the light of better
knowledge. Besides energy use that is well known and recognized as a factor to be
improved the quality factors are less evident to be established. Due to the different
behaviour of the product during drying, for quality improvement it seems that drying
conditions need to be adapted along the drying process. This leads to different
conditions to be considered during the process and drier design should involve different
sections. Also the energy use improvement needs to be considered by allowing variable
temperature in the sections, a control problem could arise on managing the energy for
the whole system.

The pretreatments play a key role in optimization keeping quality, addressing mainly
keeping colour or texture. An example for colour keeping is the use of sulphur dioxide,
traditionally employed among other for apricot drying. The fact that this compound is
harmful for asthmatic people brings the need of a careful use or even being avoided
15
(Krokida et al.,1998). For texture improvement the use of low temperature blanching
could increase after processing firmness of many vegetables like cauliflower or broccoli
(Garca-Reverter et al., 1994, Sanjun et al.,2000, Sanjun et al.,2001, Quintero-Ramos
et al.,1998)

















Figure 9. Rehydration temperature effect on texture of rehydrated broccoli florets
submitted to different blanching treatments.

The storage conditions also need to be optimized for keeping quality. It is important for
vegetables not to be subject to temperatures higher than 30C to avoid heavy quality
losses. As an example are shown in figure 10 some results for broccoli storage (Sanjun
et al., 2000). The different behaviour observed at 40C was linked to a glass transition
found at around 34 C. Glass transitions can play a role on the quality keeping of dried
fruits and vegetables although it does not seem to be as important as for cereal products.


0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110
1
st
blanching T (C)
F
o
r
c
e

(
N
/
g
)
25C
40C
55C
65C
80C
16

0.0
2.0
4.0
6.0
8.0
10. 0
12. 0
0 6000 12000 18000 24000 30000 36000
t ime (s)
W

(
k
g

H
2
O
/

k
g

d

m
)
14. 0
2. 0
4. 0
6. 0
8. 0
10. 0
12. 0
14. 0
16. 0
W

(
k
g

H
2
O
/

k
g

d

m
)
a)
b)


Figure 10. Experimental and calculated rehydration curves for broccoli stems. a)
Storage temperature: 5C. b) Storage temperature: 40C. 0 days. x 128 days. 427
days.

Besides storage conditions, another point that should be kept in mind when addressing
product quality optimization is rehydration conditions. It has been shown for broccoli
that this process affects cell wall pectic substances (Femenia et al., 2000) and as a
consequence a different texture is obtained. Rehydration carried out at low temperature,
around 70-80C, seems to be adequate for texture. This finding is in accordance with the
traditional soaking of dried products before cooking.

As can be observed quality optimization is a difficult business because quality should be
preserved at every step and usually people care only about the industrial process but not
to others equally important like storage or rehydration. Considering the whole process is
a must for product optimization (Karel,1992), in order to address this optimization all
the steps need to be modelled and their relationships with the previous ones quantified.
As far as environmental impact not only energy use and wastes should be considered,
more factors like land use, farming procedures, use of by-products, avoiding crop losses
etc should be included. For that purpose a global tool is needed to compare different
alternatives and choose environmentally optimized processes. For that purpose the LCA
technique seems promising (Bjrk and Rasmuson, 2002).

DRYING TECHNOLOGIES


Because air drying is a very old technology many developments took place in the
past, mainly driven by trial and error methodologies or by necessity of feeding people in
special situations.

17
Sun drying was the oldest one linked to the natural, atmospheric, drying of grains, fruits
and vegetables. The oldest version of sun drying was at open sun, this method of drying
is still practiced in many countries in different forms like shown in figure 11, where
grapes were dried on trays to facilitate handling.




Figure 11. Open sun drying of grapes in Spain (circa 1990).

Sun drying is still widely used in many countries although is loosing ground against
more controlled drying processes. Nevertheless the surname sun-dried carries an
environmentally friendly message and those products can constitute a market niche,
although careful attention should be paid to product quality a main concern for
consumers.

For quality control purpose open-sun drying should be avoided because dust and insect
contamination of the food as well as danger of rain or dew at night. For that purpose
different driers have been development in the world (Das and Sarma, 2001; Yaldiz and
Ertekin,C. 2001, Rossell et al. 1990), As example is shown an experimental industrial
size drier built (late 80) in Majorca (Spain) for drying fruits and vegetables. In many
places, like in Majorca, drying activity has almost disappeared due to high labour cost.
More industrialised activity for handling large quantities of raw materials remain in
place.


18



Figure 12. Sun drier

There is continued interest in the literature for the study of sun dried products both in
driers or open sun. Open sun drying experiments could be analysed by considering the
radiation collected by the food thus allowing to establish kinetic that can be used in
different parts of the world and different food shapes (Mulet et al. 1993).

Although not many attention is paid to solar drying for fruit and vegetables in
developed countries it can constitute a cost effective environmentally friendly way of
drying, although many times it is more labour intensive than other alternatives for the
drying of fruits and vegetables two main types of driers have been frequently
considered, cabinet or tunnel, as for hot air is concerned. Freeze drying is a drying
alternative to obtain high quality food, with good aroma retention and rehydration
capacity. It is employed for high value fruits and vegetables, although the high cost
involved prevents this technology from being widely used. The cost of freeze drying
has been found to be an order of magnitude higher than conventional drying systems
(Chou and Chua, 2001). This cost and the added control complexity has lead to consider
intermediate ways like low pressure drying.

According to the technology employed and drier design the control of the process is
more or less difficult. Imperfect control during the process as well as the existence of
hot zones may seriously affect the quality of the product.

The control of driers is difficult because they are highly non linear system, with variable
product input and the controller relies on variables, like moisture, difficult to monitor.
(Bimbenet et al., 2002). Additionally changes in product characteristics during drying
bring more complexity.

The most important problems arise when large drying times are needed because internal
resistance is high, this usually happen at the end of the process. Under this
circumstances efforts have been directed towards enhancing heat transfer to increase the
drying rate. Due to the fact that the product may become more porous along drying, heat
conduction could not be the adequate mechanism if over heating is to be avoided.
Computer control
Meteorological station
Polycarbonate
transparent roof
Radiant floor
Sun collectors
19

The use of microwave heating (Vega-Mercado et al. 2001) and other radiation means
like the use of radiofrequencies may help for the final stages, when internal heat
resistance prevail. The drawbacks associated to uneven heating by microwaves are
much less important for radiofrequencies.

A practical problem that arises in the drying of some fruits and vegetables is case
hardening. Case hardening can occur, when internal resistance is large compared to the
external one, an outside hard low permeable case forms, in some instance case
hardening makes drying quite difficult and requires some kind of action like low
pressure drying.

As a kind of summary Vega-Mercado et al. (2001) made a classification (generations)
of drying technologies that could be useful just for the sake of classification, evidently
they are a lot of possible variations. In the first group they include cabinet and air driers.
For these driers controlling air flow and air temperature moisture are the main points. In
a second generation they included those dedicated to slurries and purees, spray and
drum driers among others. The fluid dynamics plays a key role in material handling. In
the third generation they include freeze and osmotic drying, aimed to preserve some
product characteristics. Within the fourth generation are considered high vacuum,
microwave, RF, and hurdle approaches.

The use of superheated steam as a drying medium can bring some advantages like
increased drying rates, absence of oxygen (avoid oxidation) and permit simultaneously
heat treatment (pasteurization, sterilization, deodorization), although at the moment this
drying technology has not been embraced by industry. Even thinking that it is an energy
efficient technology (if steam is used elsewhere) standing for 1000-1500 kJ/kg water
removed compared with 4000-6000 kJ/kg water removed for hot air drying the loss of
heat sensitive compounds should be considered. There is an active field of research
mainly for vegetables (Deventer and Heijmans, 2001; Chou and Chua, 2001).

One can see that there are many options for drying, adequate to different situations. The
use of hybrid technologies for improving drying appears as a good future alternative
(Chou and Chua, 2001). Among this hybrid technologies, most are combination of some
already technologies mentioned, appear the use of heat pumps and less explored
alternatives like ultrasonic enhanced drying.


NEW TECHNOLOGIES: Ultrasonic assisted drying


The use ultrasounds have been found to increase heat and mass transfer in both
liquid or gas media (Mulet at al. 1999; Mulet et al. 2003). For solid liquid-mass transfer
it was found that a power threshold exist, if this is not attained no effect is observed, this
being the reason of not observing effects frequently when using cleaning baths. In
cleaning baths this threshold is not usually attained, a probe system appears to be
adequate. Both the nature of the liquid medium and the product affect the process.
Viscous dissipation can be an important factor to consider. As an example is shown the
brining of pork loin (Mulet et al.,2003), it can be observed the different behaviour of
the
20


























Figure 13. NaCl content (x
s
) of pork loin slices: NaCl saturated brine; 2C; 45 min ( )
Dynamic conditions; ( ) With ultrasound. 20 kHz.





















0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0 20 40 60 80
Power (W/cm
2
)
x
s



(
k
g

N
a
C
l
/
k
g

i
n
i
t
i
a
l

d
.

m
.
)
Static
Dynamic
2.80
2.90
3.00
3.10
3.20
3.30
0 20 40 60 80
Power (W/cm
2
)
W



(
k
g

W
/
k
g

i
n
i
t
i
a
l

d
.

m
.
)
Initial water
content of meat
Static
21

Figure 14. Water content (W) of pork loin slices: NaCl saturated brine; 2C; 45 min
with and without application of ultrasound. 20 kHz.



system according to the power applied. For solid gain and water loss/gain the same
threshold is observed. Nevertheless salt content is always increased (figure 13) whilst
water, despite the osmotic gradient, in some instances also increase (figure14). This
behaviour can be explained by the pressure exerted by the ultrasonic waves against the
product.

For gas-solid systems there are not many applications due to a mismatch of acoustic
impedance, a recent development of a stepped plate transducer by Gallego-Jarez et al.
(1994) allowed ultrasonic treatment (Gallego-Jurez et al., 1999) in gas phase. The
ultrasonic waves act on the product as a pressure wave, behaving the product like a
sponge, water is transferred to the surface in liquid form and then should be eliminated
either by vacuum or evaporation. In the both cases a high drying rate is achieved. The
benefits of ultrasound application are noteworthy at low temperatures (60 C) where
effective diffusivity can increase as much as 80% for carrot drying, at higher
temperatures this effect is lower (25 % increase at 90 C) (Mulet at al., 1999). This
increased effect at lower temperatures is highly beneficial for dying heat sensitive
foods, increased quality being attained. The fact of being possible to use low an
temperatures and decreasing internal resistance makes materials prone to case hardening
more easy to be processed. Using ultrasound to enhance drying should also bring added
benefits due to the fact that shrinkage would appear in a lesser extent thus a better
texture observed. This is a technology not well explored yet and research is needed to
establish methodologies as well as to evaluate benefits compared to other technologies.


FUTURE PROSPECTS AND NEEDS


There is a large amount of research, and available knowledge, carried out by
academia, but the industry is not taking full advantages even in the more developed
countries. A lack of interaction between researchers and industry is observed worldwide
(Mujumdar, 2002), as a consequence industrial advancement is slow because there is a
mismatch between research and industrial needs.

In less developed countries where industry is not very important there is a general
feeling that drying is an easy operation and not too much input is needed and anybody
can do it. A consequence of this attitude has been the failure of many drying projects.
Drying of foods is a complex business and a mere translation from other fields is not
often advisable.

Research is nowadays mainly focused on modelling and the understanding of basic
processes linked not only to drying it self but also to storage (glass transition, reaction
kinetics )

22
Energy efficiency linked to environmentally friendly processes and products also appear
as a growing trend mostly in some developed countries.

There is a need to check existing data on drying kinetics in order to establish their
applicability regarding the prevailing resistance. Also there is a need to study products
(isotherms and drying kinetics) not common in more developed countries where the
main research in the field has been carried out. This will lead to discover new niches of
activity. This is also true for countries where drying research is an active fields where
the use of off-quality fresh market products is often disregarded.

One can say that there is a general concern towards improving the final consumer
products quality. As a consequence, pretreatments, (including enrichment), optimization
and control of operating conditions, combination of drying strategies according to the
drying stage for a better migration of water, storage and consumption.