Effect of air velocity on kinetics of thin layer carrot pomace drying

Carrot pomace is a by-product obtained during carrot juice processing. Thin layer carrot pomace drying was performed in a laboratory scale hot air forced convective dryer. The drying experiments were carried out at the air velocity of 0.5, 0.7 and 1.0 m/s at air temperatures from 60 to 75 degrees C. It was observed that whole drying process of carrot pomace took place in a falling rate period except a very short accelerating period at the beginning. Mathematical models were tested to fit drying data of carrot pomace. The best fit model was observed on the basis of R-2, Chi-square and RMSE values. R-2 values for all the selected models were above 0.9783. The average values of effective diffusivity ranged from 2.61 x 10(-9) to 3.64 x 10(-9)m(2)/s.