Convective, Microwave and Combined Microwave-Convective Drying of Pepino

Drying has been used to preserve food for ages. Various techniques have been applied to obtain a final product that is reduced in terms of both volume and weight. This research was performed to specify the influences of convective drying (50 and 75 degrees C), microwave drying (90 and 160 W) and combination of microwave and convective drying (for 90 W both 50 degrees C and 75 degrees C, for 160 W both 50 degrees C and 75 degrees C) operations on drying kinetics, energy and specific energy consumption, color, activation energy, and effective moisture diffusivity of pepinos. To select the most appropriate pattern of drying curves, experimental data was utilized in ten different mathematical models. Based on the statistical tests applied to make an assessment, for all drying conditions models of Midilli et al. and Wang and Singh were found to satisfactorily explain drying kinetics of pepino. The results indicated that total energy consumption lowered with the rise of microwave power and air temperature owing to the decline of drying period with the rise of air temperature and microwave power. From the color of dried samples, the lightness value decreased from with increasing drying temperature compared with the fresh product. Offering high-quality final product with low economic cost in food industry leads to the proliferation of the research topics on the development of drying methods.