Vol. 11, Issue 11 (2022)

Drying of carrot, onions and garlic by convective hot air drying is done. The drying kinetics were investigated at 55 °C temperature. The air velocity inside the dryer was 2-3 m/s. The drying process completed within 11.5 hrs for carrot, 18 hrs for onion and 15.5 hrs for garlic. Fitting of the experimental data to different thin layer drying models for carrot, onion and garlic i.e. Newton, Page, Henderson and Pabis, Two term, Wang and Sing, Thompson and Midilli et al. models. Among all the models, Midilli et al. is the most suitable model fitted to the experimental data for all investigated drying techniques. The Midilli et al has highest R² values in all carrot, onion and garlic. The effective moisture diffusivites observed are 1.724×10^-8 m²/s, 4.03×10^-9 m²/s and 3.855×10^-9 m²/s for carrot, onion and garlic at 55 °C respectively.