modeling of potato frying process for determination of mass transfer parameters

frying is an important unit operation used widely both in domestic and industrial cooking. reduced pressure (vacuum), microwave, deep fat and pan frying are the most important methods of food frying. final product has good organoleptic quality (colour, texture, and flavour). the accuracy of the knowledge of mass transfer parameters (effective diffusivity coefficient, dimensionless biot number and mass transfer coefficient) in the case of frying is essential and important for designing, modeling and process optimization. this study is undertaken to develop a more realistic approach for determining mass transfer parameters during frying of potato slices for cylindrical coordinates. these parameters were evaluated from the plots of dimensionless concentration ratios against time in sunflower liquid oil at and . effective diffusivity coefficient, dimensionless biot number and mass transfer coefficient ranged between to , to and to , respectively. effective diffusivity coefficient and mass transfer coefficient were found to increase with an increase in frying temperature, whereas biot number decreased. an arrhenius type of relationship was found between the frying temperature and effective diffusivity coefficient.