Modeling of thin layer drying of apricot

In this research the thin layer drying behavior of apricot (cv. GHAVAMI and NASIRY) at temperatures of drying air of 40, 50, 60 and 70 ºC and at drying air velocity of 2 ms-1 was studied. In order to select the best drying curve equation, 9 different thin layer drying models were fitted to the experimental data and were compared according to their coefficient of determination (R2), reduced chi-square () and root mean square error (). According to the results, Midilli et al. models could satisfactorily describe the drying curve of apricot with R2, and of 0.999338, 0.0000456087 and 0.00651363 for cv. GHAVAMI and 0.999372, 0.0000347 and 0.005775 for cv. NASIRY, respectively.