Water absorption kinetics in parboiled husk rice

The aim of this work was to study the water uptake phenomenon during soaking of husk rice (IRGA 424) under different temperatures. Grains of husk rice with initial water content of 0.1364 (d.b.) imbibed in distilled water at temperatures of 35, 45, 55, and 75 degrees C were used. A temperature increase resulted in an increase in the water absorption rate. The Peleg's model fitted satisfactory to the experimental data of water absorption kinetics. The effective diffusion coefficient increased with an increase in temperature ranging from 0.80 to 9.18 x 10(-11) m(2)/s. The dependency of the effective diffusion coefficient on temperature can be described by the Arrhenius relationship for the temperature range studied, activation energy of 33.2 kJ.mol(-1).