4. Conclusion
Drying kinetics and modeling of the artificial drying process of
cocoa beans were investigated. Initial warm up period was observed in the 60 and 70C treatments. However, these periods
were short and subsequent drying only took place in the falling
rate period. From the present work it was possible to conclude that
the proposed new model can be used to describe the drying kinetics of cocoa drying at 60, 70 and 80C with inclusion of overnight
tempering. The calculated effective diffusivities ranged from
7.4610
11
to 1.8710
10
m2
/s. The effective diffusivities increased with temperature following the Arrhenius type relationship. The values forDoandEawere estimated at 8.4310
4
m2
/s
and 44.92 KJ/mol, respectively. All the beans were found to be
acceptable in terms of physical appearance which resemble grade
A beans. Dried beans obtained from the 60C treatment were
found to have lower acidity and good flavour quality as assessed
by cut test.
Acknowledgements
The authors are grateful to the support given by the Ministry of
Science, Technology and Innovation through the e-Science research
Grant (05-02-12-SF0014) and the Research Assistantship Grant
from the School of Chemical and Environmental Engineering,
University of Nottingham, Malaysia Campus