Drying kinetics of yellow mombin (Spondias mombin L.) epicarp

Yellow mombin (Spondias mombin L.) fruits have relevant characteristics for industrialization and exhibit a pleasant aroma and sour-sweet taste, with significant amounts of vitamin A and carotenoids in their epicarp. The objective was to fit different mathematical models to the experimental data, using as criteria to select the best model - the Akaike Information Criteria (AIC) and Schwarz’s Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC), as well as to evaluate the effective diffusion coefficient and to determine the activation energy for yellow mombin epicarp submitted to different drying conditions. The experiment was carried out at the Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia Goiano, Brazil The epicarp of yellow mombin fruits with initial moisture content of 2.89 (dry basis, d.b.) were submitted to drying at temperatures of 40, 50, 60 and 70 °C until final moisture contents of 0.11, 0.10, 0.09 and 0.08 (d.b.), respectively. The Midilli model showed the best fit to the experimental data obtained. The choice of the model was confirmed by the AIC and BIC criteria. The increase of the drying temperature promoted increase in the effective diffusion coefficient, and the activation energy of the process was 21.50 kJ mol-1.