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Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221

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Drying and rehydration characteristics of water chestnut

(Trapa natans) as a function of drying air temperature
Gagan Deep Singh a, Rajiv Sharma a, A.S. Bawa b, D.C. Saxena a,*
a
Department of Food Engineering and Technology, Sant Longowal Institute of Engineering and Technology, Longowal 148 106, Punjab, India
b
Defence Food Research Laboratory, Siddhartha Nagar, Mysore 570 001, Karnataka, India

Received 20 August 2007; received in revised form 20 November 2007; accepted 25 November 2007
Available online 4 December 2007

Abstract

Drying characteristics of water chestnut were evaluated in a commercially available cabinet oven at different air temperatures (50, 60,
70, 80 and 90 °C) to compare the drying rate and to analyze the effect of different drying air temperature on rehydration properties. The
product dried at 70 °C had better rehydration characteristics. The rate constants of the exponential and Page’s model for thin-layer
drying were established by regression analysis of the experimental data which were found to be affected by drying air temperature.
The rate constant (k) increased (0.254–0.940 h1) with the drying air temperature. The DE value decreased while increasing the temper-
ature with the values varied from 91.17 to 89.66. Rehydration characteristics were significantly affected by the drying air temperature and
found to decrease with increase in drying air temperature.
Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Water chestnut; Drying kinetics; Rehydration characteristics

1. Introduction
Water chestnut (Trapa natans L. var. bipinosa Rox-
burgh) is an edible aquatic angiosperm locally known as
‘‘Singhara”. It is one of the important annual aquatic warm
season crops. It is a floating (rooted) plant, found com-
monly on the water surface of lakes, tanks and pools
throughout India and similar countries (Puste, 2004; Singh,
2003). Water chestnut is an important commodity in food
industry because of its unique taste (Parker and Waldron,
1995). It is consumed mainly in the form of cooked vegeta-
ble, flour or in the shape of sweet dishes of many kinds.
The fruits are eaten raw at tender stage and sometimes
after boiling and roasting. It compares well with others
foods and is a good source of carbohydrates, proteins
and essential minerals. The dark-brown corms (whole fruit)
*
Corresponding author. Present address: Food Engineering and
Bioprocess Technology, Asian Institute of Technology, Bangkok,
Thailand.
E-mail address: dcsaxena@yahoo.com (D.C. Saxena).
are peeled before cooking or canning. The bulk of the edi-
ble region consists of starch-rich, thin walled storage
parenchyma similar in appearance to potato, interspersed
with vascular strands. However, in contrast to potato,
water chestnut is notable for its ability to maintain a firm
and crunchy texture after considerable heat treatment dur-
ing canning or cooking. This property is attributed to the
lack of cell separation during cooking (Loh et al., 1982;
Klockeman et al., 1991). Usually, the fruits are washed,
peeled, sliced and packaged, before commercially sold in
restaurants, hotels etc. However, minimally processed fresh
products have relatively short shelf life, because of large
amount of tissue disruption and increased metabolism that
lead to rapid onset of enzymatic browning.
In drying solids of appreciable thickness, liquid must be
transferred from interior to the surface before evaporation
occur (Magee and Wilkinson, 1992). Several theories on
the mechanism of moisture migration have been reviewed
by Majumdar (1980), but only the capillary theory and
liquid diffusion theory are generally applicable to the
drying of food materials. Drying is regarded not only as

0260-8774/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2007.11.027
214 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221
Nomenclature
E activation energy (kJ mol1)
k rate constant (h1)
MR moisture ratio (dimensionless)
M moisture content at any given instant (kg water/
kg dry solids)
me equilibrium moisture content (kg water/
kg dry solids)
a preservation process, but also as a method of increasing
added value of foods. Among foodstuffs, particular atten-
tion has been given to drying of fruits and vegetables so
that diversified products can be obtained to include in
breakfast cereals, bakery, confectionery and dairy prod-
ucts, soups, purees and others (Ramos et al., 2003). Drying
is a very important industrial operation accounting for 10–
25% of the total energy used in the manufacturing process
worldwide (Mujumdar and Passos, 2000).
Conventional air-drying is the most frequently used
dehydration operation in food and chemical industry. In
this case, drying kinetics is greatly affected by air tempera-
ture and material characteristic dimension, while all other
process factors exert practically negligible influence (Kira-
noudis et al., 1997). Dried products are characterized by
low porosity and high apparent density (Krokida and Mar-
oulis, 1997). Significant color changes occur during drying
(Krokida et al., 1998). Drying constant depends strongly
on air conditions and size of the material. Various mathe-
matical models describing the drying mechanism have been
suggested for the optimization of the process and the
design of an efficient drier (Parry, 1985; Mulet et al.,
1989; Tong and Lund, 1990; Karathanos et al., 1990;
Vagenas and Marinos-Kouris, 1991; Gekas and Lamberg,
1991; Magee and Wilkinson, 1992).
The available literature showed that most of the drying
processes are carried out at high air velocities. So external
resistance to mass transfer is neglected, and the resistance
of solid is assumed to control the process (Kaymak-Erte-
kin, 2002). The unsteady state Fickian diffusion model
can be applied (Mazza and LeMaguer, 1980; Mulet et al.,
1987) and under these conditions, the rate of drying is
affected by the air temperature, the moisture content of
the solid and the structure of the solid. Magee and Wilkin-
son (1992) investigated the effects of varying air velocity,
slice thickness and pretreatment on drying of potato slices
and concluded that potato slices did not show a constant
rate drying period and data suggested that drying was lim-
ited by liquid diffusion rather than capillary flow. Dia-
mante and Munro (1991) studied the effect of dry bulb
temperature, air relative humidity, air velocity and sample
thickness of sweet potato slices. They found that the mod-
ified Page equation best described the thin-layer air drying
of sweet potato slices. Singh et al. (2006) studied the effect
of air temperature and pretreatments on drying kinetics of
m0 initial moisture content (kg water/kg dry solids)
n dimensionless coefficient
R universal gas constant (8.314 kJ mol1 K1)
T Absolute temperature (K)
t time of rehydration or dehydration (h)
sweet potato slices and found that drying took place in the
falling rate period and Page’s model was found well to
describe the drying behavior. A slab shaped model food
was prepared and subjected to drying in an experimental
drier by Chanona et al. (2003) to evaluate the drying kinet-
ics and surface temperature distribution. It was concluded
that fractal analysis was a useful tool for describing drying
kinetics and for characterizing image of samples subjected
to dehydration.
Since no literature is available on the drying behavior/
characteristics of water chestnut, the present study was
undertaken to describe the drying mechanism of water
chestnut slices and to investigate the effect of different
drying temperatures on the rehydration and color quality.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Procurement of raw material
Fresh water chestnuts were procured from a local
grower. The sorting was done to remove blemished and
damaged fruits. After thorough washing under running
tap water, excessive surface water was drained before stor-
ing under refrigerated conditions (4 °C) till further use.
Laboratory grade potassium metabisulphite (KMS) and
citric acid were purchased from M/s Brightways Agencies,
Chandigarh, India.
2.2. Sample preparation
Fruits were peeled manually and the kernels were cut
into slices of 4 ± 0.4 mm. The slices were immediately
immersed into water containing 0.5% KMS and 1.0% citric
acid for 30 min. The initial moisture content was found to
be 81.12% (wet basis) (AOAC, 1990).
2.3. Drying kinetics study
To determine the drying kinetics, water chestnut slices
were dried on perforated trays in a tray dryer (M/s. Balaji
Enterprises, Saharanpur, India). The drying cabinet was
equipped with an electrical heater, a fan, and temperature
indicators. An approximately 100 g sample was uniformly
spread on perforated stainless steel trays. Samples were
taken out from the drier at a regular interval of 15 min
 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221 215

and weighed, till the variation in two consecutive readings 2.5. Rehydration ratio
was less than 0.01 mg. The relative humidity of the drying
air was not regulated, and average humidity of air varied Rehydration was carried out by immersing dried water
between 10% and 40% during the experiments. The air chestnut slices in distilled water maintained at three differ-
velocity was kept constant at 1.5 m/s. Experiments were ent temperatures (25, 40 and 80 °C). Approximately five
performed to determine the effect of process variables on grams of sample was added to 150 ml of distilled water,
drying kinetics. Slice dimensions were kept constant in all agitated and then allowed to rehydrate. At every 30 min
the experiments. The variables were the drying tempera- intervals, slices were removed from water, drained and
tures 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 °C. weighed. The moisture content of the rehydrated slices
was determined. The experiments were done in duplicate
2.4. Color measurement and their average values were reported.

A Hunter color measuring system (Hunter Color Diff. 2.6. Statistical evaluation
Meter, Miniscan XE plus, Hunter Associates Laboratory
Inc., Reston, VA) was used to measure the color. The area The series of drying experiments at different drying tem-
of dried product was being less than that of the light port of peratures at constant air velocity were replicated. The
the colorimeter, the slices were ground in a laboratory grin- results obtained from an analysis of variance, comparing
der (M/s. Sujata, New Delhi, India) and passed through an the estimates of random and systematic errors, were evalu-
80-mesh sieve (British standard sieve) to obtain fine powder ated based on F-value at a probability level of 5%.
of uniform size. A cylindrical plastic dish (58 mm in diam-
eter and 15 mm in depth) containing the same quantity of 3. Results and discussion
dried samples was placed at the light port (50 mm in
diameter). Each sample was measured for color values 3.1. Drying rate
thrice. The information given by L*, a* and b* is generally
expressed as the total color, with L* representing the The typical drying rate curves at different drying temper-
brightness or dullness, a* for redness to greenness and b* atures are shown in Fig. 1. The variation of moisture
for yellowness to blueness. The DE value was calculated content with drying time was obtained at each drying tem-
using the following equation: perature. From these results, drying rates were calculated
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi and plotted against time. The drying rates were computed
DE ¼ DL2 þ Da2 þ Db2 ð1Þ using a Lagrangian numeric differentiation technique utilizing

5.0
50 ˚C
60 ˚C
4.5
70 ˚C
80 ˚C
Drying rate, kg water/kg dry matter.h

4.0 90 ˚C

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0.25 0.50 0.75 1.00 1.25 1.50 1.75 2.00 2.25 2.50 2.75 3.00 3.25 3.50 3.75 4.00 4.25 4.50 4.75 5.00 5.25 5.50 5.75
Time, h
Fig. 1. Effect of temperature on drying rate of water chestnut slices.
216 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221

5.0
50 ˚C
60 ˚C
4.5
70 ˚C
Moisture content, kg water/kg dry matter

80 ˚C
4.0
90 ˚C

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0 5.5 6.0
Time, h
Fig. 2. Effect of temperature on moisture content of water chestnut slices.

three data points. It was observed that the drying rate conditions, the convective drying of biological materials
decreased continuously throughout the drying period. in the falling rate period is a diffusion-controlled process
The constant rate period was not observed in any of the and may be represented by Fick’s second law of diffusion.
experimental runs for the entire duration. The drying of However, the non-Fickian models have been observed
water chestnut slices took place in the falling rate period. during drying of visco-elastic food materials, where both
Similar types of observations were given for tapioca roots relaxation and diffusion affect mass transfer (Willis and
(Chirife and Cachero, 1970) and sweet potato slices (Singh Okas, 2001). An equation that has been used successfully
et al., 2006). to describe drying behavior of a variety of biological mate-
rial is Page’s equation.
3.2. Effect of drying temperature on moisture content MR ¼ ðm  me Þ=ðm0  me Þ ¼ expðktn Þ ð2Þ
Drying of water chestnut slices at higher temperature The linear form of Eq. (2) is
resulted in quicker removal of water and shorter drying ln½ lnðMRÞ ¼ lnðkÞ þ n lnðtÞ ð3Þ
times. A plot of moisture content (dry basis) versus time
at different drying air temperatures (50–90 °C) is shown The linear regression of Eq. (3) was carried out using the
in Fig. 2 indicating the direct effect of drying air tempera- least squares technique and the coefficients were deter-
ture on moisture content and drying time. The findings mined. The values of the coefficients are reported in
were in accordance to previous studies (Babalis and Table 1. As seen in Fig. 1, the Page’s equation adequately
Belessiotis, 2004; Njintang and Mbofung, 2003; Falade described the convective drying of water chestnut slices
and Abbo, 2007). over selected range of drying air temperatures. The
coefficient of determination was greater than 0.977 and
3.3. Selection of drying model

Various types of mathematical models have been used to Table 1

describe drying of foodstuffs, ranging from theoretical Value of coefficients of Eq. (2)
models based on classical diffusion theory and simplified Temperature (°C) k (h1) n R2 Standard error
forms of these to purely empirical models. For the mathe- 50 0.254 0.129 0.988 0.145
matical analysis, it is assumed that the moisture driving 60 0.420 0.123 0.987 0.158
force during drying is liquid concentration gradient. The 70 0.587 0.162 0.977 0.161
effect of heat transfer is neglected, since the heat transfer 80 0.763 0.185 0.999 0.173
90 0.940 0.182 0.997 0.167
proceeds in a rapid manner during drying. Under these
 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221 217

standard errors were less than 0.145 in all the cases, as Table 2
shown in Table 1. Effect of drying temperature on color valuesa
Temperature (°C) L* a* b* DE
3.4. Effect of temperature variables on drying characteristics 50 90.76 0.03 8.67 91.17
60 89.82 0.10 9.54 90.32
It was observed that the total time of drying reduced sig- 70 89.89 0.17 9.59 90.40
80 89.03 0.67 10.61 89.66
nificantly with the increase in the temperature of hot 90 89.06 0.70 10.14 88.65
air. The rate constant (k) increased (0.254–0.940 h1) a
Average of two values.
(P 6 0.05) with the drying air temperature. The results sug-
gested that the Arrhenius law might be applicable to relate
the dependence of the rate constant on drying air tempera- of slices at 70 °C could be considered optimum for obtain-
ture. The relationship is given by the following equation: ing a high quality product as the DE value decreased again,
with a temperature increase.
k ¼ k 0 expðE=RT Þ ð4Þ
The computed values for activation energy for water chest- 3.6. Effect of drying on rehydration characteristics
nut were 31.57 kJ mol1. Plots of ln MR against drying
time showed a linear relationship (Fig. 3) and verify the Rehydration kinetics was analyzed by several workers
dependence of drying air temperature. according to the unsteady state of Fick’s law of diffusion
(Mazza and LeMaguer, 1980; Kaymak-Ertekin and Caka-
3.5. Effect of temperature on color characteristics loz, 1996; Crank, 1975; Lenart and Iwaniuk, 1993). The
rehydration ratio was affected significantly by the drying
The effect of drying temperature on color values was temperatures (Figs. 4–8) at all the selected rehydration tem-
found to be significant as shown in Table 2. The L*, a* peratures, i.e. 25, 40 and 80 °C. The rehydration ratio
and b* values varied from 90.76 to 89.03, 0.03 to 0.70 decreased as the drying temperature was increased. It
and 8.67 to 10.61, respectively whereas, DE values varied might be due to detrimental effect of temperature that
from 91.17 to 89.66. Highest value of DE value was caused the caramelization of sugar, and thus resulted into
observed for the sample dried at 50 °C, but the drying time the clogging of pores on the surface. This leads to lower
taken was much longer than drying at 70 °C. Thus, drying diffusion of water through the surface during rehydration.

1.0

0.9

0.8

0.7
Drying rate constant, h-1

0.6

0.5

0.4
Experimental points
Fitted equation
0.3

0.2

0.1

0.0
0.00309598 0.00300300 0.00291545 0.00283286 0.00275482
Time, h
Fig. 3. Temperature dependence of drying rate constant of water chestnut slices.
218 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221

5.0
25 ˚C
40 ˚C
4.5 80 ˚C
Rehydration ratio, kg water/kg dry matter

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time, h
Fig. 4. Rehydration of water chestnut slices dehydrated at 50 °C.

5.0
25 ˚C
40 ˚C
4.5 80 ˚C
Rehydration ratio, kg water/ kg dry matter

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time, h
Fig. 5. Rehydration of water chestnut slices dehydrated at 60 °C.
 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221 219

5.0
25 ˚C
40 ˚C
Rehydration ratio, kg water/ kg dry matter 4.5 80 ˚C

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time, h
Fig. 6. Rehydration of water chestnut slices dehydrated at 70 °C.

5.0
25 ˚C
40 ˚C
4.5
80 ˚C
Rehydration ratio, kg water/ kg dry matter

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Time, h
Fig. 7. Rehydration of water chestnut slices dehydrated at 80 °C.
220 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221

5.0
25 ˚C
40 ˚C
4.5
80 ˚C
Rehydration ratio, kg water/ kg dry matter

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5

0.0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Time, h
Fig. 8. Rehydration of water chestnut slices dehydrated at 90 °C.

The rehydration ratio at 80 °C was observed more rapid in the case of green and red peppers (Kaymak-Ertekin,
than 25 and 40 °C in all the samples dried at different tem- 2002). The rehydration rate at 80 °C always remained
peratures. It might be due to the fact that higher the tem- higher, but the color of the product at the end of the rehy-
perature of steeping water, quicker is the diffusion of dration process deteriorated due to high steeping tempera-
water into the material. The rehydration ratio increased ture. On the other hand, the color of the products
significantly within the initial period, but the rate slowed rehydrated at 25 and 40 °C resembled with those of fresh
down gradually (Figs. 4–8). The same trend was observed ones. The data presented in Table 3 depict the variations
among the calculated values of k, n and their respective
coefficients of determination (R2) in Page’s equation. The
Table 3
values for k, n and R2 varied between 0.886–0.991 h1,
Value of the rehydration coefficient at different rehydration temperature
0.121–0.843 and 0.886–0.992 for all the experimental
Drying Rehydration k (h1) n R2
conditions.
temperature (°C) temperature (°C)
50 25 0.915 0.362 0.915
40 0.970 0.302 0.971 4. Conclusions
80 0.886 0.270 0.886
60 25 0.915 0.394 0.915 Air drying and rehydration of water chestnut slices
40 0.961 0.253 0.961 could be modeled using Page’s equation. It would be pos-
80 0.992 0.128 0.992 sible to attain faster drying with increased drying tempera-
70 25 0.929 0.377 0.929 ture up to 90 °C. Drying took place entirely in the falling
40 0.991 0.279 0.992 rate period. The drying rate constant was related to tem-
80 0.986 0.843 0.986 perature using the Arrhenius relationship. Rehydration
80 25 0.970 0.308 0.971 rates of water chestnut slices were found to be dependent
40 0.964 0.240 0.964 of drying conditions. The rehydration ratio decreased as
80 0.991 0.121 0.991 the drying temperature was increased. In view of the color
90 25 0.968 0.298 0.968 and energy values, it could be concluded that the slices
40 0.932 0.282 0.932 dehydrated at 70 °C provided product with better color
80 0.913 0.158 0.913 quality and with moderate energy requirement for drying.
 G.D. Singh et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 87 (2008) 213–221
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