A Mathematical Model for Thin-Layer Drying of Litchi Pulp

A drying experiment of litchi pulp was done with a self-built heat-pump drying system. A few commonly-used thin-layer drying models for foods were linearized and fitted with the drying experimental data to select a relatively optimal model of depicting the relationship between moisture ratio and drying time of the heat-pump drying of litchi pulp. It was found that the Page model is relatively optimal. The multivariate linear regression approach was employed to solve for the parameters of the Page model based on experimental data and an experimental verification was conducted; the verification results show that the predicted values of the Page model have a good fitness with the measured values and thus the Page model can predict more accurately the moisture ratio and drying rate of litchi pulp in a heat-pump drying process.