Journal ofFood Engineering 13 (1991) 103-l 14

Shrinkage Effect on Drying Behavior of Potato Slabs

Constantino
Departamento

Suarez & Pascual E. Viollaz

de Industrias, Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Ciudad

Universitaria, ( 1428) Buenos Aires, Argentina

(Received 26 September

1989; revised version received 30 May 1990:

accepted 6 June 1990)

ABSTRACT
The rate of drying of potato slabs at different initial moisture contents and
thicknesses was investigated. The variation of surface area with time was
measured in order to consider the degree of shrinking of the samples
during drying. Experimental drying curves were interpreted in terms of
Ficks law for shrinking bodies and by means of the classical difSctsiona1
model, without shrinking. It was found that for relatively short drying time
Ficks model with shrinking correlates adequately with the experimental
results, with a di@sion coeficient independent of moisture content.
However, in terms of the classical diffiaional model the experimental data
predict a strong dependence of the difSusion coeficient on moisture
content. Such dependence was attributed to a shortcoming of the classical
Fickian model and not to physical reasons.

NOTATION

1
A
D

j:

D,r
FO,
R

R
RI,

RII

Solution of eqn ( 14)

Initial surface area of natural sample ( cm2)
Initial surface area of predried sample (cm)
Mutual diffusion coefficient (cm/s)
Effective diffusion coefficient (cm/s)
= DO/R:, Fourier number based on the totally dried halfthickness of the slab
Half-thickness of the slab (cm)
Initial half-thickness of the slab (natural samples) (cm)
Initial half-thickness of the slab (predried samples) (cm)
Defined by eqn ( 13)
103

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Publishers Ltd, England. Printed in Great Britain

Journal

- 0

1991

Elsevier

Science

C. Suarez, P. E. Viollaz

104
Ri
Rs
U
UO
14:)
ui

Half-thickness
of the slab at the equilibrium moisture
content (cm)
Half-thickness of the totally dried solid assuming unidirectional shrinkage (cm)
Moisture content (g water/g dry solid)
Initial moisture content of natural samples (g water/g dry
solid)
Initial moisture content of predried samples (g water/g dry
solid)
Equilibrium moisture content (g water/g dry solid)

Uf

=(U-Ui)/(U"-Ui)

Coordinate along the diffusion path (cm)

= E /R, (dimensionless coordinate along the diffusion path)

PA
PA,
PA,,

PB
Pb,
Ph
P,
Pf
PW

Time (s)
Coordinate along the diffusion path measured from the
centre of slab and equal to the volume of totally dried solid
divided by transversal area (0 G 6 G R,) (cm)
Mass concentration of water by unit volume (g/cm)
Equilibrium interfacial mass concentration of water (g/cm)
Initial mass concentration of water (g/cm)
Mass density of dried solid (g/cm)
Mass density of dried solid at initial moisture content (g/cm)
Mass density of dried solid at equilibrium moisture content
(g/cm)
Mass density of fully dried solid (skeletal density) (g/cm)
=(PA,,

PA,)/(P~

- PA,) WmensionW

Mass density of water (g/cm)

INTRODUCTION
Considerable research is reported in the literature to develop an understanding of the mechanism of moisture movement in natural products,
but findings are not yet conclusive. Ficks second law for diffusion was
used by many investigators to describe the drying process, accepting the
hypothesis that the resistance to moisture flow is distributed throughout
the material (Vaccarezza et al., 1974; Young & Whitaker, 1971; Chen &
Johnson, 1969; Alzamora & Chirife, 1980), among others. Other
solutions have been postulated considering variable diffusion coefficients but neglecting shrinking of the body during drying (Hall &
Rodriguez-Arias, 1958).

Shrinkage effect on drying behavior ofpotato slabs

105

Shrinking of biological products during drying takes place simultaneously with moisture diffusion and thus may affect the moisture removal
rate. Hence, a study of the shrinking phenomena is of importance for
better understanding of the drying process. Consideration of shrinking in
drying models is generally difficult because of the lack of information
about shrinking coefficients and their relationship with moisture diffusivity. Viollaz and Suarez (1984) obtained a mathematical expression
of Ficks second law for drying of shrinking bodies, assuming unidirectional shrinking and volume additivity for water and dry solids.
The objective of the present study is to analyze the drying curves of
potato slabs in the light of the classical diffusional model and by means
of Ficks equation for shrinking bodies. During the development of this
work some of the difficulties derived from application of the diffusional
model to the drying curves of products which change their volume
during drying will be presented.

THEORETICAL

CONSIDERATIONS

The classical approach to the analysis of the drying process

isothermal nonsteady diffusion is by means of the equation:

au/a6=D,,@u/i3x2

under

(1)

Equation (1) was proposed by Sherwood (1929) to analyze the drying

process in an infinite slab and used by various investigators to interpret
experimental drying curves, even for those cases where shrinking is
important. A different approach was proposed by Viollaz and Suarez
(1984) who postulated the following equation for an infinite slab:

apAlae=Da2p,lax

(2J

According to the above-mentioned

authors eqn (2) can be transformed
as follows assuming volume additivity and unidirectional shrinking:

au/aFO,=a/az(l/(i+P,lI~PH)~au~az)

(3)

Equation (2) was numerically solved by means of Landaus transformation in order to fix the integration domain (Viollaz & Suarez, 1984).
Equation (3), which has a fixed domain of integration, was also
numerically solved by Viollaz and Suarez ( 1985), its solution being
coincident with the solution of eqn (2). Furthermore,
an analytical
solution of eqn (2) was obtained for a semi-infinite body by Viollaz
(1985). Such solutions can be used to describe the drying process in

C. Suarez, P. E. Viollaz

106

finite slabs during relatively large periods of time, owing to the low
values of the diffusion coefficients usually found in food dehydration.
MATERIALS

AND METHODS

The potatoes used for the dehydration experiments were bought in a

supermarket and stored in a refrigerator at 5C for about one week.
Samples of different thickness were mechanically
sliced and the
corresponding thicknesses measured with a dial micrometer. The edges
of the slab were sealed with a resin in order to assure dehydration from
the two major faces of the slab.
To investigate the effect of the initial moisture content on drying rate,
some potato slabs were predried to different moisture content levels. In
order to assure uniform moisture throughout the slab, the predried
samples were left to equilibrate at room temperature for about three
days prior to their use in the drying experiments. The surface area
corresponding
to the samples having initial moisture content were
immediately measured after they were sliced. Similar measurements
were made with the predried samples, after they reached uniform
moisture distribution, and during the drying process. The surface area
measurements were made by drawing the edges of the slab on a piece of
paper and weighing the paper on a precision balance ( + O-1 mg).
To estimate the mass density of the fully dried solid, ,os, volume
measurements were performed using a pycnometer and chlorobenzene
as the fluid. The solid density was calculated as the fully dried weight
sample divided by its volume; the resulting value was l-3 g/cm.
The dry solids of each sample were determined after each drying run
by the vacuum oven method at 70C for 72 h. The average moisture of
the samples was expressed as g water/g dry solid. The equilibrium

OJt,

100

200
Elimid

300

Fig. 1. Drying curves of potato slabs at 51C; u,, = 396 g/g and R,, = 1.02 cm. 0,
Natural sample; A, u;,= 1.87 g/g and RI, = 0.69 cm; 0, ui, = O-88 g/g and RI, = 0.49 cm.

Shrinkage effect on dtying behavior ofpotato slabs

107

moisture content was determined by equilibration against saturated salt

solutions which provided known constant relative humidities.
The drying equipment used in this work was described in detail in a
previous work (Suarez et al., 1980). It consists, basically, of a centrifugal

0.011

200

3cxl

CJImtn)

Fig. 2. Drying curves of potato slabs at 5 1C; u,, = 4.63 g/g and R,, = 0.4 1 cm. A.
Natural sample; 0, ui, = 2-45 g/g and RI, = 0.26 cm; 0, ui, = 153 g/g and RI, = 1.2 1 cm.

9lmtn)

Fig. 3. Drying curves of potato slabs at 5 1C; L+~

= 4.63 g/g and R,, = 0.20 cm. A,
Natural sample; 0, u;, = 2-60 g/g and RI, = 0-I 5 cm; 0, u;, = l-5 1 g/g and Ri, = O-1 1 cm.

108

C. Suarez, P. E. Viollaz

fan which blows the air through a heating section and then upwards
through a vertical duct at the end of which was placed the sample to be
dried. The sample was withdrawn from the drying chamber at regular
intervals and rapidly weighed. All drying experiments were carried out in
air at 51C, flowing parallel to the evaporation surfaces at a rate of 11
m/s.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The time-moisture
content variation of potato slabs having different
initial moisture contents and thicknesses are shown in Figs 1, 2 and 3
(the curves correspond to natural and predried samples). For the sake of
clarity it must be mentioned that the curves plotted in Figs 1, 2 and 3
correspond to samples with initial thickness of about 2 cm, 0.8 cm and
0.4 cm, respectively; these values correspond to the natural samples (not
predried). It is interesting to observe that the drying behavior between
samples with different initial thicknesses differed markedly. The drying
curves plotted in Fig. 1 (2R,, 2: 2 cm) for natural and predried samples,
show the typical Fickian behavior found by other investigators
(Vaccarezza et al., 1974). The plot of log u + versus time gives the
straight line characteristic of the first falling rate period and the intercept
values extrapolated at large enough time were OS-0.9, approximately.
The drying curves of the thinner samples (2R,, = O-8 and 0.4 in Figs 2
and 3, respectively) show a different behavior. As can be seen from these
figures most of the drying curves deviate from the straight line, which can
be attributed to the appearance of a second falling rate.
Given that the thickness of the predried samples was different from
the natural ones owing to the lateral contraction resulting from the
moisture losses during the predried treatment, the initial thickness of the
predried samples was corrected according to the following equation:

(4)
Equation (4) can be obtained assuming that the specific volume of water
and solid are constant and additive. In Fig. 4 several drying runs were
plotted in terms of log u + versus 19/Rif (the water density was taken as
equal to 1 g/cm3). This kind of plot is in agreement with the analytical
solution of eqn (1) for a semi-infinite slab of half thickness RI,, written
here for convenience of the reader, and is of the form (Luikov, 1968)

Shrinkage effect on drying behavior ofpotato slabs

109

It is clear that if the drying data are interpreted in terms of eqn (5) they
must fall in a single curve, a fact that was not observed. As can be seen in
Fig. 4, natural and predried samples behave in a quite different way.
Given that the experimental data seems not to obey eqn (1) or the
corresponding solution given by eqn (5), three different hypotheses were
formulated in order to explain such disagreement.
(a) The diffusion coefficient depends on moisture content.
(b) The surface area variation with 6/R{f
varies from one sample to
another.
(c) The model based on eqn ( 1) is not appropriate.
In order to test these hypotheses the surface area variation of some
samples were plotted in Fig. 5 in the form A /A,,
versus 0/R;(the curves
plotted in this figure correspond to natural samples). It can be seen that
the curves are not smooth, increasing or decreasing with time, although
with a net tendency to decrease. It is interesting to observe that for
relatively short drying times, O/R,',
< 300 approximately, the values of A /
A, differing slightly from unity, a fact particularly observed for samples
of large thickness. However, for increasing values of B/R,',,
the different
samples show considerable irregularities in the form of the curves, as can
be seen in Fig. 5 for some of the used samples. (Other curves not shown
here corroborate this behavior.)

OlL-
0

500

loo0

0/R:

Fig. 4. Drying curves of potato slabs corrected by the initial half-thickness (log 14+
versus e/R{f) (R,,, RI, for natural and predried samples). A, u,,= 3.96 g/g, ai,= O-88 g/g,
R,,= 1.02 cm and R:, =0.49 cm; 0, u,, = 4.63 g/g, ui,= 1.53 g/g, R;, =0.39 cm and
RI, =0.21 cm; A, u,, =4.63 g/g, R0=0.20 cm; H, u,)= 4.63 g/g, R,,= 0.41 cm 0,
L+,= 3.96 g/g, R,, = 1.02 cm.

110

C. Suarez, P. E. Viollaz

Fig. 5. Surface area variation of the slabs. Curve 1: 0, u,, = 4.63 g/g and R,, = 0.20 cm;
Curve 2: A, u,,= 3.96 g/g and R,, = 1.02 cm; Curve 3: 0, u,, = 4.63 g/g and R,, = 0.41 cm.

At this point in the analysis the curves shown in Fig. 4 will be analyzed
in the light of the results shown in Fig. 5. The sample whose drying
behavior is shown in Fig. 5 (curve 1) is expected to show the largest
drying rate as it has the largest evaporation area for relatively short
drying times (8/R; < 300). However, as the sample shows the smallest
drying rate (see Fig. 4) the area variations do not explain the drying
behavior of the samples plotted in Fig. 4.
Taking into account that for short drying times (O/R; < 300) the area
variation of the samples was relatively small, it was decided to reduce the
present analysis to short drying times. Under this circumstance the
sample can be considered
as a semi-infinite slab, the relationship
being a straight line (Luikov, 1968). The
between u + and t3'12/R,,
resulting curves are shown in Fig. 6, where it can be seen that the curves
1, 2 and 3 practically present the same drying rate (the three curves have
similar slopes). The corresponding surface area variations are given in
Fig. 5 and correspond to samples that were not predried. It can also be
observed that curves 4 and 5 of Fig. 6, which correspond to predried
samples, show lower drying rates. It can be concluded that both groups
of samples, natural and predried, should have different diffusion coefficients. On the other hand, the different intercept values of the curves at
u + = 1 can be attributed to different time lags. The appearance of the
time lag in the drying curves is due to the fact that the samples of
different thicknesses also have different temperature evolution. It must
be noticed that even though the thicker samples have longer time lag, in
terms of 01/2/Ro
the effect is opposite, i.e., double thickness corresponds
to double time lag but 8 /Rireduces to half.
The analysis of the experimental data, based on the validity of eqn (l),
and represented in Fig. 6 shows certain variations of the diffusion coefficient with moisture content. An alternative analysis will be undertaken

Shrinkage effect on drying behavior ofpotato slabs

111

Fig. 6. Dimensionless moisture content variation for short drying times. 0. u,, = 3.96
g/g and R,, = 1.02 cm; I[;, = 0.88 g/g and RI, = 0.49 cm; A , ~4,~
= 4.63 g/g and R,, = 0.40
cm; u:,= 1.53 g/g and RI, = 0.12 cm; 0, u,, = 3.63 g/g and R,, = RI,= 0.20 cm; A.
u,, = 4.63 g/g and R,, = RI, = 0.41 cm; n, u,, = 3.96 g/g and R,, = RI, = 1.02 cm.

U*

Fig. 7. Dimensionless moisture content variation for short drying times (characteristic
length RI;). 0, I~,~=4.63 g/g and R,,=0.20 cm; A, u,, =4,63 g/g and R,, = 0.41 cm; 0,
u,, = 3,96 g/g and R,, = 1.02 cm; 0, q, = 4.63 g/g and R,, = W40 cm; u:, = 153 g/g and
R:, = 0.2 1 cm; n, u,, = 3.96 g/g and R,, = 1.02 cm; u;, = 1.87 g/g and RI, = 0.69 cm; A.
H,, = 3.96 g/g and R,, = 1.02 cm; u:, = 0.88 g/g and RI, = 0.49 cm.

C. Suarez,

112

P. E. Viollaz

based on eqn (2). For this purpose we will make use of the analytical
solution derived by Viollaz (1985) from eqn (2) and that corresponds to
eqn (12) in the work previously mentioned. For convenience, that
solution is written here in terms of moisture content, taking into account
that there exists a linear relationship between u and the half thickness R
of the slab, which varies with time as a consequence of the shrinkage
effect. The solution is (Viollaz, 1985):
u +=1_2a(D8)*/(R,,-Ri)

(6)

Equation (6) can also be written in the following form:

U + = 1 -(L'~)"'I(Ro(R,, -Ri)/(2a&))

On the other hand, if it is assumed that the drying is unidirectional,

results in

(7)
this

RiPB, =Rc~PB,,

(8)

(Ro -Ri)IRo = 1 - (PS,,/PB, )

(9)

and

Assuming additivity of volumes allows for the relation:

(&I/P,) + (&JP,)

= 1

(10)

and eqn (9) results in

(Ru -Ri)IR,, = (PA,,- P*,)/(P~ - PA,)= P +
Based on these transformations
form

(11)

of variables, eqn (7) can be put in the

u + = 1 - (DB)/R;;

(12)

R;I= Rl,p/2a

(13)

with

The variable Ri, resulting from the product of p /2a times the initial
half-thickness (R, for natural samples and Ri, for predried samples) can
be considered as the effective initial half-thickness. The main advantage
of this variable is the possibility of reducing to a single curve the drying
behavior of samples having different initial and equilibrium moisture
contents. The value of a is obtained from the expression (Viollaz, 1985)
an/* erfc(a)exp(a*)=p+

(14)

Shrinkage effect on drying behavior ofpotato slabs

II3

Some drying curves were analyzed by means of eqns ( 12) and ( 13) and
the results plotted in Fig. 7 in terms of u+ versus t9/2/R:[. From this
figure it is observed that the drying curves are straight parallel lines
during certain time intervals. According to eqn (12) the present result
means that the diffusion coefficient can be considered independent of
moisture content. The fact that a single straight line was not obtained can
be due to the different thermal history of the samples with the consequent different time lag. The departure of the straight line as drying
time increases, particularly notorious in the thinner samples, is not
necessarily due to diffusion-coefficient
variation with moisture content
but to surface area variations that samples may undergo during drying.

CONCLUSIONS
Drying curves of potato slabs having different initial moisture contents
and thicknesses were analyzed in the light of the classical diffusion
equation (Ficks second law) with constant diffusion coefficient and no
shrinking. The resulting curves, plotted in the form of II + versus 8 /Ri,
show a strong dependence
of the diffusion coefficient on moisture
content.
A different result was obtained using Ficks law of diffusion for a
shrinking body. Assuming
unidirectional
shrinkage
and constant
diffusion coefficient, the drying behavior of potato samples was
described satisfactorily using the analytical solution for diffusion with
volume change in a semi-infinite slab, for relatively short drying times. It
can be supposed that the deviation of the experimental data from the
model, observed in some samples for large drying times, is not necessarily
due to the variation of the diffusion coefficient with moisture but to other
factors such as the lateral contraction of the samples, which may vary
considerably from one sample to another in a rather unpredictable way.
It was also observed that the experimental data do not fall in a single
drying curve but form a group of parallel straight lines with different time
lags. This effect was attributed to the different thermal history of the
samples.
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114

C. Suarez, Z? E. Viollaz

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Viollaz, P. E. & Suarez, C. ( 1984). An equation for diffusion in shrinking or

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