Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
6 th International Eurasian Conference on Science, Engineering and Technology, 25 - 27 Haziran 2025, ss.1466, (Özet Bildiri)
Drying of food products enhances product stability by preventing microbial spoilage, while also improving the efficiency of transportation, storage, and packaging. Commonly known as prickly pear, Opuntia ficusindica consists of cladodes, flowers, fruits, and seeds. Cladodes are rich in fiber, minerals, flavonoids, phenolic compounds. The fruit, composed of pulp, peel, and seeds, contains glucose, fructose, pectin, and notable bioactive compounds such as ascorbic acid, flavonoids, betalains, and phenolics. Infrared drying offers several advantages over conventional drying methods, including reduced processing time, uniform surface heating, minimized quality degradation, equipment simplicity and compactness, versatility, and substantial energy savings. In this study, the infrared drying kinetics of prickly pear (Opuntia) samples were investigated, and the experimental data were evaluated using established mathematical drying models. Prickly pear fruits were sliced into semi-circular shapes and dried in an infrared dryer at temperatures of 50, 60, and 70 C. The drying behavior was evaluated using a range of commonly applied mathematical models, including Aghbashlo et al., Alibas, Henderson et al., Jena and Das, Lewis, Logarithmic, Midilli and Kucuk, Page, Parabolic, Verma et al., Wang and Singh, Weibull, Two-Term Exponential. The drying process was completed within 240 to 555 minutes. Among the applied mathematical models Jena and Das, Midilli and Kucuk, and Aghbashlo et al. models exhibited the best performance for the 70 °C-dried samples with their high coefficients of determination (R2) values over 0.999 and low chi-square (x2) and root mean square error (RMSE) values. Two-Term Exponential, Midilli and Kucuk, and Aghbashlo et al. models provided the closest agreement with the experimental data of 60 C-dried samples with R2 values greater than 0.9999. For the samples dried at 50 C, the Two-Term Exponential, Weibull, and Aghbashlo et al. models demonstrated the best conformity with the observed drying behavior. These models yielded the highest R2 values and the lowest x2 and RMSE values, with R2 values also found to be greater than 0.9999.