ABSTRACT
The drying process is used to remove some water from the product, in order to increase the shelf life, to minimize post-harvest losses in excess of production and owing to the shrinkage, reducing the cost of packaging, transport and storage. Thus, the objective of this work was to study the drying of fig, analysis of shrinkage, as well as obtaining the values of liquid diffusion during the fig drying process. Figs were used from some Niterói Markets and subjected to drying under controlled air temperatures (40, 55 and 70 °C). Mathematical models were adjusted to experimental data to represent the processes of shrinkage and drying of agricultural products. The polynomial model and Midilli had the best fit for the observed data for the temperature range studied, representing the best shrinkage and drying fig, respectively. The liquid diffusion increases with increasing temperature with values between 1.76 x 10-11 and 8.78 x 10-11 m2 s-1.
Key words:
mathematical modeling; post-harvest; fruit
