Author : Md. Wadud Ahmed

Mango is a major producing fruit in Bangladesh. According to the research, post-harvest loss of mango is about 34% of the total production. To reduce huge losses, leather production by drying is a good alternative. In this paper, the thin layer drying kinetics of formulated mango leather were studied at different temperatures (55, 60 and 65°C) and thicknesses (3mm and 5 mm). Drying time was decreased with increasing temperature and increased with increasing leather thickness. Seven different models (Lewis, Henderson and Pabis, Page, Modified Page, Logarithmic, Wang and Singh and Midilli et al.) were used to describe drying characteristics where all models were compared with coefficient of determination (R2 ), reduced mean square of deviation (x2 ), mean bias error (MBE), root mean square error (RSME) and standard error of estimate (SEE). The Midilli et al. model was found to be best for describing thin layer drying of mango leather. According to Fick’s diffusion model, the effective moisture diffusivities were between 2.17× to 3.45× /s. The activation energy of moisture diffusion was estimated to be 41.8141 kJ/mol.

Keywords: Mango leather, Drying kinetics, Thin layer drying models, Moisture diffusivity, Activation energy