Impact of different thin layer drying temperatures on the drying time and
quality of butterfly pea flowers
With attractive flower colours ranging from dark green to purple, Butterfly pea (Clitoria ternatea L.) is grown year-round in Vietnam. The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of air temperature on drying time and antioxidant compounds of Butterfly pea flowers, fitting the drying curves and testing the goodness of fit. In this study, air drying characteristics of the Butterfly pea flowers were determined using drying air temperature from 55oC to 70oC at a constant air velocity of 1 m/s. The data of experimental moisture loss were fitted to selected seven thin-layer drying models. The effect of drying conditions on the anthocyanin and total phenolic compound changes of Butterfly pea flower were compared. The effect of temperature on the diffusivity was described using the Arrhenius equation with an activation energy of 71.63 kJ.mol- ¹. At increasing temperature, the effective moisture diffusivity values ranged from 2.39×10-12 and 7.76×10-12 m²s - ¹. The mathematical models were compared according to the three statistical parameters such as the coefficient of determination (R2 ), reduced chi-square (χ 2 ) and root mean square error (RMSE) between the observed and predicted moisture ratios. The highest value of R2 (99.8%) and the lowest values of χ 2 (0.0004) and RMSE (0.0178) were observed for drying air temperature of 70oC. Among the seven mathematical models tested with experimental data, the Page model could sufficiently be described the drying characteristics of the Butterfly pea flower.