Comparison of Banana Drying Characteristics in Jet Impingement Dryer and Tray Dryer

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study drying characteristics of banana by comparing between jet impingement dryer and tray dryer. In the drying experiments, the Cavendish banana with a mature ripe stage of 5 was sliced into 4 mm thickness and drying at temperatures of 75, 85 and 95 ๐C and mass flow rate of 0.18, 0.26 and 0.35 kg/s until the moisture content was lower than 25%db. The dried products were analyzed physical properties for color, hardness, factorability, and shrinkage. The specific energy consumption was also considered for comparison. The physical results were used to select the optimized condition for drying banana slices. The experiments results showed that increasing of temperature and mass flow rate of hot air affected to increase drying rate and decrease the drying time. At same drying conditions, drying of banana slice in jet impingement dryer gave higher drying rate than tray dryer. When compared the physical characteristics after drying, it is found that banana slices drying with jet impingement dryer had less total color change, less factorability, more hardness, more percentage shrinkage and less specific energy consumption than those dried with tray dryer.