Experimental and simulation studies on blanching and its impact on the drying rate of carrot

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents an experimental and numerical study on the blanching and drying of carrots. Blanching of carrot slices has been performed at four temperature–time combinations. The effect of separating the core and cortex and blanching temperature on the drying rate of carrots has been studied. The blanching process increases the drying rate of carrots. The drying constant for slice, cortex, and core, respectively, has been found to be 22.84%, 24.90%, and 36.94% higher for the samples blanched at 95°C for 5 min, when compared to the unblanched samples. The drying rate also increases with the increase in blanching temperature. The drying constant increases by 37.64% and 109.18% in the case of cortex and core respectively, when compared to the slice. Temperature histories obtained through finite element analysis using ANSYS Fluent software were duly validated with the experiment.Practical applicationsThe effect of separating the core and cortex and blanching temperature on the drying rate of carrots has been studied in this paper. The blanching process increases the drying rate of carrots. The drying rate also increases with the increase in blanching temperature. Blanching further also helps to improve the drying constant. The separation of the cortex and core from the slice also aids in reducing drying time and increasing the drying constant. Thus, it has been concluded that the novel concept of separating the slice into core and cortex combined with blanching resulted in a very significant increase in drying rate which will result in a great saving of time and power input in the drying process.