Dehydration of Kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) Slices Using Heat Pipe Combined with Impingement Technology

This study is designed to investigate drying kinetics, heating characteristics and energy consumption of heat pipe-impingement drying (HID) kiwifruit slices. Subsequently, color and rehydration characteristics of dried kiwifruit slices were also studied. The results showed that Modified Page model and trinomial regression equation provided appropriate fit for drying and heating curves of kiwifruit slices, respectively. In addition, the treatment for increasing drying temperatures and air velocities, and decreasing the distance between jet nozzles and material steel wire mesh box (DJM) was shown to enhance drying productivity. It was also found that low temperature, high air velocity and low DJM contributed to the processing of high-quality dried kiwifruit and the reduction of energy consumption. These results suggest that kiwifruit slices can be dried effectively with HID, and the predictive equations of heat and mass transfer could be applied to industrial design and operational guide for the HID of kiwifruit.