Drying kinetics of thyme

This work aimed to study the drying kinetics of thyme and subsequent adjustment of different mathematical models to the experimental data and to determine the effective diffusivity and the activation energy. In order to conduct the experiment the temperatures of 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 degrees C were used. The experimental design employed was in randomized blocks with three repetitions. For the adjustment of the mathematical models to the experimental data non-linear regression was performed using Simplex-Quasi-Newton method. The results showed that the Page model was the one that promoted the best fit of the experimental data to describe the drying kinetics of the thyme leaves. The values of effective diffusivity coefficients ranged between 3.69 x 10(-12) and 1.19 x 10(-10) m(2) s(-1) and the value of activation was 77.16 kJ mol(-1).