DOI: 10.21276/sjet.2016.4.8.6

Pages: 375-381

This paper is aimed at studying the rate of moisture removal from samples of staple food using a multipurpose convective cabinet dryer. A multipurpose convective cabinet dryer is designed, fabricated and used to study the moisture removal rate of sliced yam, bitter yam, cocoyam, cassava and plantain (A, B, C, D and E respectively) placed in a single layer. These food samples were obtained from eastern part of the country. The samples were dried from initial moisture content of 60.1%, 72.7%, 70.9%, 64.4%, 61.4%, respectively to final moisture content of 0% in five different trays at 60OC air temperature and 2.5m/s air velocity and the weight losses were taken. The moisture removal rate was found to decrease with time and drying process occurred at falling rate period. From the plot of the mass against drying time, it was observed that in general, the reductions in mass of the sliced samples occur at falling rate period. This indicates that the moisture removal from the samples is controlled by the mechanism of diffusion.