Abstract

This article presents experimental and modeled drying kinetics of potato slices of the Desiree variety (9 × 9 × × 3 mm3) in a pulsed fluid bed as a function of the air velocity, air temperature, and rotating disk velocity of the pulse generator. A statistical multifactor experimental design (23) was applied to analyze the drying process with two levels each of drying temperature, air velocity, and rotating disk velocity. The results showed that the significant factors were air temperature, air velocity, rotating disk velocity, and the binary interactions of air velocity with both the temperature and the rotating disk velocity. The simplified variable diffusivity model (SVDM) gave the least deviation for the experimental data. The effective diffusivity values determined in this work are similar to those reported in the literature.