Moisture distribution in baked products at the end of baking is important
because it directly affects the product’s quality. In fact, nonhomogeneous
moisture distribution may result in quality defects such as cracking, checking
etc. Diffusion inside and convective mass transfer outside the product are
important factors affecting the quality. Therefore, accurate values of mass
transfer parameters should be known for optimization of the baking process to
obtain a product of higher quality. For this objective, infinite mass transfer
and constant diffusion coefficient simplifying approximations have been
applied in the literature numerous times to develop mass transfer models.
However, the infinite mass transfer coefficient approximation may not hold
true, especially under natural convection conditions.