Influence of Blanching on the Drying Characteristics of Convective Hot Air Dried Aerial Yam

A research on the drying characteristics of aerial yam using convectional hot air was done. The raw unblanched and blanched samples were dried using convectional hot air. Fan speed, temperature and slice thickness were varied to determine the change in moisture content. The Fourier transform infrared FTIR and scanning electron microscopy SEM were done to determine the functional groups and surface morphology respectively for each sample. FTIR results revealed the presence of some important functional groups such as esters, ethers and nitro compounds, and shows that drying at this temperatures 40 70oC does not alter the nutrient components of this variety of yam. The SEM results showed that important cells were not destroyed at the drying temperature. Batch studies on the drying process also showed that increase in temperature and air speed increased the drying process, but decreases with increase in slice thickness. Effect of drying rate on the sample showed that drying rate increase with increase in temperature and air speed but decrease with increase in slice thickness. After 90 minutes of drying, the drying rate of the 2 mm slice thickness was 0.353 g g.min for drying of aerial yam while for 4 mm and 6 mm slice thickness, the drying rate were 0.261 and 0.169 g g.min respectively, for effect of drying rate on sample thickness. It showed also that blanched aerial yam sampleshad a higher drying rate than the unblanched aerial yam sample at the same conditions. Therefore, the economic advantages of this yam species can be optimized by blanching. Nwadike, E. C | Nwabanne, J. T | Azaka O. A | Abonyi, S. E "Influence of Blanching on the Drying Characteristics of Convective Hot Air Dried Aerial Yam" Published in International Journal of Trend in Scientific Research and Development (ijtsrd), ISSN: 2456-6470, Volume-4 | Issue-6 , October 2020, URL: https://www.ijtsrd.com/papers/ijtsrd33577.pdf Paper Url: https://www.ijtsrd.com/engineering/mechanical-engineering/33577/influence-of-blanching-on-the-drying-characteristics-of-convective-hot-air-dried-aerial-yam/nwadike-e-c