Influence of ultrasound-pretreated convective drying of Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L) leaves on its drying kinetics and nutritional quality

The drying kinetics and the nutritional qualities of Roselle (Hibiscus sabdariffa L) leaves as affected by ultrasound pretreatment during hot air drying were investigated in this work. Ultrasound frequency and power at 20 kHz and 600 W, respectively, were used for the experiment. Roselle leaves were subjected to ultrasound pretreatment in distilled water for 0 min (untreated), 5 min (UD5), 10 min (UD10) and 15 min (UD15) before hot air drying. The result showed that UD15 samples had about 47% reduction in drying time compared with the untreated samples. The effective moisture diffusivity of the treated and untreated samples ranged from 1.21 to 3.29 × 10−1m2/s. The Page and Logarithmic models best described the drying behavior for the untreated and treated samples respectively. The values of the mass transfer Biot number (ratio of internal mass transfer resistance to external mass transfer resistance) for all the samples ranged from 0.9032 to 1.2391. The samples of UD10 and UD5 had the highest amount of carotenoid and vitamin C contents, respectively, amongst the untreated and treated samples. The total color change of the treated samples were significantly lower than the untreated samples after drying. Drying of Roselle leaves is usually done using convective drying method with its attendant's effects such as long drying time, loss of nutrients and high energy usage. But this work showed that application of ultrasound pretreatment during drying of Roselle leaves can significantly reduce the drying time and at the same time retain the nutritional quality of the dried treated samples.