A. Dini; N. Sedaghat; S. M. A. Razavi; A. Koocheki; B. Malaekeh-Nikouei
Abstract
Introduction Pistachio nut is one of the most delicious and nutritious nuts in the world and it is being used as a saltedand roasted product or as an ingredient in snacks, ice cream, desserts, etc. The purpose of roasting is to promote flavour and texture changes in nuts that ultimately increase the ...
Read More
Introduction Pistachio nut is one of the most delicious and nutritious nuts in the world and it is being used as a saltedand roasted product or as an ingredient in snacks, ice cream, desserts, etc. The purpose of roasting is to promote flavour and texture changes in nuts that ultimately increase the overall palatability of the product.Roasting involves a number of physico-chemical changes, including heat exchange, chemical reactions and drying. Knowledge of desorption kinetics is essential to predict the behavior of the material during roasting process and to design roaster equipment.The main aim of this research was to evaluate suitable models for predicting moisture ratio, the effect of air temperature and velocity on the drying kinetics of pistachio nuts and obtain the effective diffusivity coefficient and activation energy in the drying process during the roasting of pistachio nuts. Materials and Methods Dried Ahmadaghaei pistachio nuts were supplied from Kashefan Kavir company (Doraj co.) in Rafsanjan. Pistachio nuts were soaked in 17% salt solution for 8 minute and roasting was investigated at air temperatures of 120,130, 145, 160 and 170 °C and air velocities of 0.6, 0.88, 1.3, 1.72 and 2 ms-1. Five semi-theoretical and two empirical kinetic models were fitted to drying experimental data using nonlinear regression analysis techniques in the Curve Expert 2.2 computer program. Results and Discussion Tow-way ANOVA indicated that temperature and hot air velocity significantly affected the drying process during roasting of shelled pistachio nuts. The higher roasting temperatures and air velocities resulted in the higher drying rates. During first 10 min of roasting at constant air velocity of 1.3 ms-1, 64.5%, 70.3%, 77.1%, 83.5%, 89.7% of the moisture were removed at roasting air temperatures of 120 °C, 130 °C, 145 °C, 160 °C, 170 °C, respectively. The high regression coefficients (R2>0.996) and low reduced chi-square (χ2), mean relative deviation modulus P (%) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) indicated that the Weibull models are suitable for predicting moisture ratio. Correlations of the Weibull model constants with the variables of temperature and velocity were determined. Additionally, effective diffusivity (Deff) determined by using Fick’s second law was varied from 4.418×10-09 to 2.648×10-08 m2s-1 over the temperature and air velocity ranges. The lowest and highest Deff values were found for samples roasted at temperature of 120°C with air velocity of 0.6 m s-1 and temperature of 170°C with air velocity of 2 ms-1, respectively. Temperature dependence of the diffusivity coefficient was described by Arrhenius-type relationship. Also average activation energy was obtained 26.615 kJ mol-1. Conclusion The results of this study showed that temperature and hot air velocity significantly affect the drying kinetics during roasting of pistachio nuts.The effective diffusion coefficient determined in this study was more than the limits specified in food products drying at lower temperatures and there was direct relationship between temperature and hot air velocity with effective diffusion. Activation energy was obtained close to some agricultural products.
Modeling
M. Ostad Hoseini; A. Ghazanfari Moghaddam; H. Hashmipour-Rafsanjani; A. Ataei
Abstract
IntroductionThe lignocelluloses materials have high potential for producing various types of biofuels. These materials include various parts of plants, especially leaves and stems that are left without a specific usage after annual pruning. These residues can be used through slow or fast pyrolysis process ...
Read More
IntroductionThe lignocelluloses materials have high potential for producing various types of biofuels. These materials include various parts of plants, especially leaves and stems that are left without a specific usage after annual pruning. These residues can be used through slow or fast pyrolysis process for production of liquid and gaseous biofuels. The slow pyrolysis is taking place at temperatures below 500°C while fast pyrolysis process takes place at a temperature above 700°C. Various studies on production of biofuels from plant residues have shown that the temperature, heating rate and the resident time of pyrolysis process are the main factors that affect the final product quality. At present time, in Iran, there are more than 360 thousands hectares of pistachio growing fields which annually produce over 215 thousands metric tons residues which are mainly leaves and stems. The main objective of this study was to measure the heating properties of the powders prepared from the leaves and the stem of pistachio trees. These properties include higher heating value (HHV), lower heating value (LHV) and thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) of the powders. Then the powders were separately pyrolysed and the kinetic of the pyrolysis process for producing charcoal from them was investigated. Materials and MethodsIn this research, leaves and stems of pistachio trees were initially analyzed to determine their chemical constituents including moisture content, volatile compounds, carbon (C), hydrogen (H), nitrogen (N), sulfur (S) and oxygen (O) content. Using these constituents the height heating value and low heating value for the leaves and the stems were determined. The thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA) of the powders was made to select a proper heating temperature for pyrolysis of the powders. In each experiment about 10 g of powder powders were pyrolyzed to produce char. Based on TGA results, the pyrolysis experiments were performed at 350, 400, 450 and 500°C with 30 minutes residence time. The instantaneous amount (in decimal) of the produced gas (M) and char (Ms) as a function of time (t) was modeled using the following equations: For each experiment B is a constant value and is represented by:Where Ea is the activation energy, R is universal gas constant, T is the temperature of the experiment and A is the pre-exponential constant. By having M or Ms at different times (t), the parameters of A, B and Ea were estimated using the curve fitting tool box of the MATLAB® software. Results and DiscussionThe results of chemical analysis indicated that the leaves powders contained 1.5% N, 42.1% C, 5.5% H, 0.4% S and 48.3% O while the stem samples contained 0.5% N, 46.5% C, 6.1% H, 0.2% S and 44.6% O. Higher amount of carbon and hydrogen in the stem leaves indicates that the stem should have higher energy content. In fact, the calculated high and low heating values for leaves were 17.23 and 16.03 MJ.kg-1, and for the stems were 18.91 and 17.59 MJ.kg-1, respectively which comply with the predicted results from chemical analysis of the powders. The TGA test results indicated that the initial weight loss took place up to 270°C for the stems powder and up to 220°C for leaves powders. This weight loss was due to loss of moisture and volatile compounds. The actual degradation temperature for the stem powders ranged from 300 to 500°C while for the leaves was from 350 to 600°C. The results of pyrolysis experiments indicated that the pyrolysis of stems took place faster than leaves. The pyrolysis time was 10 to 15 min for leaves and 5 to 10 min for stems. The resulting char for pyrolysis of stem was 30% and for stems were 40% of the original materials. The kinetic of pyrolysis was modeled using one-step global model for production of char and gas. The experimental data were fitted to the used model with high degrees of accuracy (R2>0.99). The model parameters, namely activation energy and frequency factors were 10.70 kJ.mol-1, and 0.047 s-1 for stems and 21.72 kJ.mol-1 and 0.312 s-1, respectively. ConclusionsIn general, both HHV and LHV of the stems were higher than those of leaves due to higher carbon content of the stems. The TG curves indicated the pyrolysis time of stems was shorter than that of leaves. The leaves yielded 40% char while the stem yielded 30%.
