Contribution of external resistance to mass transfer during pasta drying

ABSTRACT

The contribution of external resistance to mass transfer during pasta drying was quantified for a range of pasta properties, extrusion conditions, and drying temperatures. Comparison of drying models showed that neglecting external resistance to mass transfer significantly decreases the accuracy of models during the early stages of drying. A nonlinear uncertainty analysis revealed that failing to consider external resistance to mass transfer results in an underestimation of the effective diffusion coefficient. The Akaike information criterion confirms that external resistance to mass transfer should not be neglected for small pasta or pasta dried at high drying temperatures.

KEYWORDS:

• Diffusion
• drying
• external resistance
• mass transfer
• pasta

Acknowledgment

The author would like to thank Martin Mondor (Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Saint-Hyacinthe Research and Development Centre) for the relevant comments on the manuscript, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada for their financial support.