The objective of this study was to investigate the drying kinetics of oyster mushroom, Pleurotus ostreatus Mushrooms were dried using a cabinet-type convective dryer. Air temperatures of 50, 60 and 70 oC were used for the drying experiments. The experimental drying data were fitted to different theoretical models to predict the drying kinetics. Nonlinear regression analysis was performed to relate the parameters of the model with the drying conditions. The performance of these models was evaluated by comparing the correlation coefficient (R2), root mean square error (RMSE) and the chi-square (χ2) between the observed and the predicted moisture ratios. Among all the models, the model of Midilli et al. was found to have the best fit in this study. Effective moisture diffusivities (Deff), diffusivity constant (D0) and activation energy (Ea) were calculated. The Deff varied from 9. 619x10-10 to 1.556x10-9 m2s-1 over the temperature range studied and Ea was 22.228 kJ mol -1.

Keywords: Drying kinetics, Effective diffusivity, Activation Energy, Oyster mushroom, Thin-layer drying models

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