4. Conclusions
IR drying produced much firmer-texture product with much increased drying efficiency for fresh blueberries and sugar-infused blueberries compared to convectional air-drying. Increasing the temperature from 60 to 80 °C, showed great enhancement of drying rate and reduction of drying time without causing significant negative influence on the quality of dried products. The effective moisture diffusivity and activation energy were higher for fresh blueberries than that for sugar-infused blueberries under IR drying. Thompson model showed best fitness to IR drying of both fresh and sugar-infused blueberries.