Selection and construction of a mathematical model for heat-pump drying of tilapia fillets

A drying experiment of tilapia fillets was done with a self-built heat-pump drying system. Through linearizing, a few commonly used thin-layer drying models for foods and fitting them with the experimental data, the fitting results indicate that Page model and Modified Page model are relatively suitable to depict the relationship between the moisture ratio and the drying time of the heat-pump drying of tilapia fillets. The multivariate linear regression approach was employed to solve for the parameters of the Page model and Modified Page model, and the results of the verifying tests show that the Page model and Modified Page model are suitable to depict the law of moisture change of tilapia fillets in the heat-pump drying process, and can predict more accurately the moisture ratio change and drying rate of tilapia fillets in heat-pump drying process.