Vol. 2, Issue 1, Part A (2016)

Abstract
Drying of blanched banana peel was carried out in tray dryer. The drying experiments were performed at two different temperatures and a constant air velocity of 0.5 m/s. To select a best model, five different thin layer drying models were fitted to experimental data. Nonlinear regression procedure was used to fit five different models. The models were compared with experimental data of banana peel drying at air temperature of 60 °C and 70 °C. The best thin layer drying model was selected using the coefficient of determination (R²), chi-square (𝒳²) and Root Mean Square Error (RMSE). The highest value of R² (0.99640, 0.99652), the lowestrnof chi-square(𝒳²) (0.000218, 0.000231) and RMSE (0.014778, 0.015177 ) at temperature of 60 °C and 70 °C indicated that the Logarithmic and Henderson and Pabis model is the best mathematical model to describe the drying behaviour of banana peel.