Mathematical modeling of sun and solar drying of chilli pepper

The drying characteristics for chilli pepper using sun and solar drying were investigated. Chilli pepper was pretreated by water and steam blanching and by soaking in osmotic solutions of 60 and 70 degrees brix. Untreated chilli pepper was taken as a control. The pretreated chilli pepper dried faster than untreated chilli pepper while the drying of both samples occurred in falling rate period. Four thin-layer drying models (Newton, Henderson and Pabis, Logarithmic and Page) were fitted to the experimental data to select a suitable drying equation. The Page model was found to best describe the drying behavior of chilli pepper for sun and solar drying. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.