Fatemeh NADI - Department of Agricultural Machinery Mechanics Engineering, Islamic Azad University, Azadshar branch Azadshar, Golestan, Iran
Zoherh HAMIDI - Department of Food Science and Technology Engineering, Tarbiat Modares University Tehran, Iran

In the present work, Golden apple was dried in a laboratory scale vacuum dryer to moisture content less than 0.12 kg water kg dry solid-1. Drying characteristics of Golden apple was investigated under varying conditions of slice apple thickness (5 and 7 mm) and vacuum chamber temperature (50, 60 and 70 °C) at 20 kPa absolute pressure. A non-linear regression procedure was used to fit nine thin-layer drying models available in the literature to the experimental moisture loss data. The models were compared based on the coefficient of determination, mean relative percent deviation, root mean square error, and the reduced chi-square between the observed and predicted moisture ratios. The Wang and Singh model has shown a better fit to the experimental drying data as compared to other models

Golden apple; Drying Characteristics; Drying Model; Vacuum Drying