Probing inside fruit slices during convective drying by quantitative neutron imaging

Thijs Defraeye, Bart Nicolaï, David Mannes, Wondwosen Aregawi, Pieter Verboven, Dominique Derome

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

33 Scopus citations

Abstract

Quantitative neutron imaging was applied for the dynamic monitoring of the internal moisture distribution of fruit slices during convective drying in a drying tunnel. The impact of several process conditions was evaluated, including airflow temperature, air speed and incident radiation. This technique also unveiled that anisotropic shrinkage was caused, in part, by spatially heterogeneous dehydration, as induced by the presence of the peel. Neutron imaging provided unique graphical and quantitative insights on how the internal water distribution evolved. Thereby, this imaging technique has large potential to complement conventional techniques for monitoring, controlling and optimising drying processes of complex biomaterials, or to generate high-resolution validation data for numerical simulations.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)198-202
Number of pages5
JournalJournal of Food Engineering
Volume178
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 1 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • Apple
  • Convective
  • Dehydration
  • Drying
  • Non-destructive imaging
  • Tunnel

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