Mathematical Modelling of the Drying Kinetics of Clupea harengus from Congo

Abstract

Modeling means finding a mathematical relationship between coordinates. focused on the kinetics of herring fish. Herring fish, known in the Congo vernacular as “makouala”, is available in large quantities in the country. Its consumption and exploitation constitute an important source of nutrients and revenue. The aim of this study is to investigate the behavior of herring (Clupea harengus) flesh during continuous convective oven drying at three different temperatures (50, 60 and 70°C).  The expriment was carried out by oven-drying kinetics at the three (3) temperatures mentioned above. Five (5) semi-theoretical mathematical models were used to describe the drying kinetics, with the coefficient of determination (R2), the statistical parameters reduced ki-square (χ2) and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) being used to assess the quality of the smoothing of the curves for mass loss, dry base content and drying speed as a function of time. Effective diffusivity and activation energy were also evaluated and discussed in this work. The results obtained provided plots of the evolution of mass, dry base content and drying rate as a function of time. Among the models examined, the “Midilli et al. [1]” model appeared to best describe the drying behavior of herring fish under the experimental conditions studied, with coefficient of determination (R2) values of 0.99808, 0.99663 and 0.99811 at 50, 60 and 70°C respectively. Effective diffusivity (Deff) values calculated in m2/s were for the same temperature order 2.52993 x 10-5 m2/s ; 2.45657 x 10-6 and 4.21370 x 10-6 for an activation energy (Ea) equal to 83.80 kj/mol.