Engineering Studies on Drying Tomatoes (Essolanum Lycopercum) Leathers Using Infrared and Hot AIr

This study was carried out at Rice Mechanization Center (RMC) in Meet Eldeebah village , Agricultural Research center,Dokki,Giza,,Egypt, during 2021 to study the possibility of utilization the infrared radiation and hot air for drying tomato leathers at two different levels of infra-red radiation intensity (1000 and 900 W/m2), two different levels of drying air temperature (55 and 60°C), drying air velocity (0.5m/sec) and thickness of (0.8 cm). The experimental work included the use of the simple exponential Lewis model for describing the drying behavior and predicting the changes in moisture content of tomato leathers during the drying process. The obtained results showed that the drying rate increases with increasing temperature and infrared radiation. The highest value recorded at 60 °C and 1000W/m2 and reached 0.620155 (gw/gd.hr). The optimum treatment that achieved the highest quality of tomato leathers at radiation intensity of 1000W/m2, air temperature of 60°C, also the same treatment recorded the Less drying time (9 hours).