Pages: 28-37

Abstract

Shrimps (Penaeusnotialis) are highly perishable and predominantly found in the market in form of frozen raw or cooked products. It is susceptible to microbial deterioration and the types of technology adopted for post-harvest handling have effects on their storage characteristic. Drying as a method of preservation can reduce these losses. This research studied dehydration kinetics of Shrimp (Penaeusnotialis) applying convective oven dryer method at 50⁰C, 60⁰C, 70⁰C, 80⁰C, 90⁰C and 100⁰C, and was imputed into Page, Henderson-Parbis, and Lewis models based on linearize Fick's Second law of diffusion. The average effective diffusivity values ranged between 8.431x10^-7 and 7.653x10^-6 m²/sec. The activation energy value obtained was 890.3 J/mol. This is an indication that the drying of Shrimp ocurred in the falling rate period. The Page model, closely tailed by the Henderson-Parbis’ were noticed to be the best models applicable for predicting the drying behaviour of the Shrimp (Penaeusnotialis) by a non-linear regression analysis.