Therefore, the study of the drying kinetics of fish is necessary. In this study, the
effect of microwave drying on drying rate, effective diffusivity, and energy consumption of sardine
fish was examined at four different microwave powers (200, 300, 400 and 500 W). It was found that
the moisture content was reduced from 2.76 to 0.01 (dry basis) and drying time of the samples was
significantly reduced from 9.5 to 4.25 min as the power input increased. Five thin layer drying models
were fitted to drying data. The Midilli model was selected as the best according to R2
, v2 and
RMSE. The drying of fish samples took place in the falling rate period and was governed by moisture
diffusion. The effective diffusivity varied from 7.158 · 108 to 3.408 · 107 m2
/s over the
microwave power range. No significant differences were observed between the specific energy consumption
of microwave-dried sardine fish (a = 0.05). However, minimum specific energy consumption
(3.78 MJ/kg water) was obtained at 500 W microwave levels.