Table 2 illustrates the effective moisture diffusion coefficient
obtained at different banana thicknesses and blanching
times. Blanching and material thickness strongly affected
the values of effective moisture diffusion coefficient under
the same puffing and drying temperatures. Blanching caused
a lower void area fraction of banana, as seen in Fig. 4,
which makes moisture movement during the drying process
difficult, resulting in the low moisture diffusivity in the
blanched sample. In addition, the gelatinization of banana
starch during blanching limits the speed of moisture movement
within banana during drying. Marousis et al.[24]
found that gelatinized corn starch had a lower moisture
diffusion coefficient than nongelatinized corn starch.