– This research aimed to investigate the effects of
drying temperature (70, 80, 90 and 100oC) on dried coconut
residue quality change in terms of oil content, whiteness
value, and to determine suitable drying empirical model. To
reduce moisture content of coconut residue from about 1.56
to 0.084 gwater/gdry matter by fluidized bed drying technique
(constant velocity at 1.0 m/s), required drying time was in
range of 4.3 - 8.0 min. Four of the well-known empirical
models Newton, Henderson and Pabis, Page and Midilli et
al.,) were fitted to the fluidized bed drying of coconut residue.
The Page model has shown an excellent fit to predict drying
behavior of the coconut residue because this model gave the
highest coefficient of determination (R
2
), the least chi-square
(
2
) and the lowest root mean square error (RMSE). The
higher the drying temperature, the shorter the drying time
required. From the quality assessment, oil contents of dried
coconut residue samples were close to each other and were
higher than that of the fresh residue. Whiteness values of
dried coconut residue were in the same range as that of the
fresh residue. The dried coconut residue had oil content of
0.250±0.002 to 0.263±0.001 g oil / g dry matter and whiteness value
of 87.90±0.15 to 88.33±0.03 %.