Arrowroot Flour Drying Using Solar Drying Dome

Abstract

This article was a research and innovation project to transfer technology to the founding community. This research was to drying arrowroot flour with solar drying dome compared with traditional sun exposure drying method. The objective of this research was to study of drying kinetic, color quality, water activity and to develop empirical mathematical modeling for predicting drying kinetic. The research was conducted by initial moisture of arrowroot flour at about 80% d.b. (dry basis) and was dried until final moisture at about 15% d.b. The results found that drying rate of arrowroot flour by solar drying dome is higher than by traditional sun exposure method. Arrowroot flour dried by solar drying dome is achieved faster than traditional sun exposure about 2-4 hours. Color quality is good and acceptable. The water activity of dried arrowroot by solar drying dome was approximately 0.478-0.493 while the sun exposure was about 0.495-0.548 with water activity within 0.6, which is the standard of dry food storage, in both methods. In addition, the Verma et al.’s empirical equation of mathematical modeling is the best equation for predicting of drying kinetic of arrowroot flour which the highest coefficient of determination, the lowest root mean square error and sum of squared error.