Drying Characteristics of Elephant Foot Yam and Performance Evaluation of Convective Dryer in Kinetically and Equilibrium Controlled Regime Under Varying Conditions

Drying characteristics of elephant foot yam (EFY) are determined at three different air velocities and temperatures using an innovative convective dryer. The performance of the convective dryer is also determined and compared based on four parameters namely total energy consumption, specific energy consumption (SEC), drying and thermal efficiency, working in kinetically controlled regime (KCR), and equilibrium controlled regime (ECR). EFY has excellent medicinal properties and used for the treatment of various diseases; in spite of that, its drying characteristics have not been reported. The entire drying process of the EFY sample can be divided into three stages, and it is observed that around 80% of the moisture is removed in the first stage and only 5% of the moisture is removed in the last stage. The constant drying rate period is absent, and depending on the different slopes, the entire drying rate period comes under three falling rate periods. A correlation of EFY with air velocity and temperature is developed, and the maximum and minimum values of effective moisture diffusivity (EMD) are found to be 2.65 × 10⁻¹⁰ and 7.15 × 10⁻¹⁰ m²/s, respectively.