Heat and mass transfer in deep-frying of pumpkin, sweet potato and taro

Heat and mass transfer parameters, effective thermal diffusivity, heat transfer coefficient, effective moisture diffusivity and moisture transfer coefficient—for pumpkin (Cucurbita pepo), sweet potato (Ipomoea batatas) and taro (Colocasia esculenta) under deep-frying conditions were determined by fitting experimental data on transient values of temperature and moisture content to the solution of the standard diffusion equation in cylindrical coordinates as modified by Dincer (Heat Mass Transfer 32:109–113, 1996). A case of Biot number in the range of 0< Bi <100 was considered in this study. Remarkably good agreement was found between estimated and calculated values as the root mean square error between the measured and calculated temperature and moisture content values were only 5.0% and 1.3%, respectively. The model can be easily and effectively used to determine effective diffusion coefficients as well as transfer coefficients for heat and mass transfer. The oil uptake values for the above vegetables were lower than the values reported for other deep fried products.