Effects of multilayer mechanical drying on the drying kinetics of white button mushroom Agaricus bisporus

Abstract

In the present paper, drying kinetics of button mushroom slices affected by three different independent parameters, including temperature (45-65 0C), air velocities (1.0-5.4 m/s), and loading densities (26-52 kg/m2) were investigated at 3 levels each. Four different dying models were applied to describe the drying kinetics of multilayer drying. Single layer drying was kept as control. The results indicated logarithmic model as the best model to characterize the drying kinetics of mushroom in both Multi and Single layer drying. The logarithimic model had the lowest root mean square error (RMSE), mean bias error (MBE) and chi-square. The highest effective moisture diffusivity (Deff) of 4.92×10-06 and 5.40×10-06 m2/s was observed for multi and single layer drying respectively.