Drying Characteristics of the Borneo Canarium odontophyllum (Dabai) Fruit

Abstract

The quality and shelf-life of an underutilized fruits are compromised by the conventional method of drying. We therefore proposed using hot-air chamber to develop the drying curves of Canarium odontophyllum (dabai) fruit. Present study provides evidence of the best mathematical model to demonstrate the drying characteristics of this indigenous fruit and thus, may generate or add to the existing database. The drying experiments were performed at three different relative humidity of 10, 20 and 30% and a constant air velocity of 1 m sec^-1. Drying kinetics of C. odontophyllum fruit were investigated and obtained. A non-linear regression procedure was used to fit three different one-term exponential models of thin layer drying models. The models were compared with experimental data of C. odontophyllum fruit drying at air temperature of 55°C. The fit quality of the models was evaluated using the coefficient of determination (R²), Mean Bias Error (MBE) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The highest value of R² obtained was 0.9348, the lowest MBE value was 0.0018 and the value for RMSE was 0.0420. Page model is the best mathematical model to describe the drying behavior of C. odontophyllum fruit.