Determination of drying equation and effective diffusion coefficient
The drying curves of small and large sizes of shrimps dried using inlet drying air temperatures between 40 - 70 °C at an inlet air flow rate of 1.0 ± 0.2 m/s were shown in Figure 5. The experimental results were used to formulate the thin-layer drying equation by curve fitting. The drying kinetics of small and large shrimps had significant relation to the inlet drying air temperature. In addition, the drying at high temperature resulted in increased moisture removal rate compared to that of low temperatures.
Moisture ratio of predicted and experimental data of small size shrimp under the condition of 1-stage drying using hot air convection with temperatures of 37.8 - 69.9 °C and average hot air flow rate of 1.1 m/s (recycled air of 66.7 %).