SPECIFIC HEAT OF SOYBEAN

S. D. DESHPANDE'

Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering

Nabi Bagh, Berasia Road, Bhopal - 462 038
(M.P.) India

AND

SATISH BAL

Post Harvest Technology Centre

Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur - 72I 302, India

Accepted for Publication August 10, 1999

ABSTRACT

The specific heat of soybean, determined by the method of mixtures,

exhibited linear positive correlation with moisture content in the moisture range
from 8. I to 25 % d. b. for the mean temperature of 315 K and can be expressed
in the form as Cp=1.444 ( I + 4.06 x IO'M). The spec@c heat values
increased from 1.926 to 2.912 kjfig-K in the given moisture range. Further, the
specific heat values obtained in the present study when compared with the values
predicted by the other empirical methods indicated the close approximation of
observed and estimated values.

INTRODUCTION

Soybean is one of the world's most important sources of edible oil and
protein and dominates world production of legume seeds. It has double
advantage of having about 40% good quality protein and 20% cholesterol free
oil. As the soybean contains unusually large number of biologically active
thermolabile components, these are to be destroyed by heat treatment prior to
human consumption. These thermal treatments may involve heating, cooking,
drying and or freezing. Therefore, a knowledge of specific heat of soybean is
required not only for quantifying thermal processes but also for designing
processing systems.

'Corresponding author.

Journal of Food Process Engineering 22 (1999) 469-477. All Rights Reserved.

'%opyright 1999 by Food & Nuirition Press, Jnc.. Trumbull, Connecticut. 469
410 S.D. DESHPANDE and S. BAL

The specific heat of biological materials has usually been determined by

using either ice calorimetry or the method of mixtures. Hsu ef al. (1991) and
Oje and Ugbor (1991) used method of mixtures for determining the specific heat
of pistachios and oilbean seeds, respectively. It was observed by Sharp and Nash
(1965) that with ice calorimetry, it takes a long time for the apparatus to
stabilize in melting snow, the temperature of the bath must be controlled within
fine limits and the apparatus can be used only for a set of grains in the same
bulk density range. In view of these difficulties, the method of mixtures is
preferred for the determination of the specific heat of food grains. This method
has been used for the determination of specific heats of other agricultural
materials (Suter et at. 1975; Sharma and Thompson 1973; Kazarian and Hall
1965; Kustermann ef al. 1981; Teotia ef al. 1989; Kachru ef al. 1994; Oje ef
al. 1999).
The specific heat can be calculated more accurately, if the composition of
the food material is known, by using the equation given by Charm (1971):

C, = 0.5 X, + 0.3 X, + 1.0 X, (1)

This concept was further expanded (Heldman 1975) to incorporate specific

heats of even more basic components of the product to give the following
expression:

C, = 0.34 X, + 0.37 X, + 0.4 X, + 0.2 X, + 1.0 X, (2)

The objective of this study was to estimate the specific heat of soybean as
a function of moisture content.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

For the present work, dry mature soybean (Glycine max Cv JS -7244) were
used for all the experiments in this investigation. The grain was cleaned, sorted
and graded before it was used for the experiments. The grain samples at the
desired moisture levels were obtained by adding calculated amounts of distilled
water to the grain which was then sealed in separate polyethylene bags. The
samples were kept at 278K in a refrigerator for a week to enable the moisture
to become uniformly distributed throughout the sample. The moisture content
of the grain was determined using a standard method (USDA 1970) in which
three samples, each weighing about 15 g were kept in a convective oven set at
376 K for 72 h, then cooled in a desiccator and weighed.
The specific heat of soybean were obtained at eight moisture levels in the
range of 8 % to 25% d.b. taking three replications at each moisture content.
 SPECIFIC HEAT OF SOYBEAN 47 1

The specific heat of soybean was determined by the method of mixtures.

Experimental Set-up
The experimental set-up mainly consisted of a calorimeter, capsules for
holding the samples, instruments for the precise measurement of temperatures
and an oven, as shown Fig. 1.

FIG. 1 . SPECIFIC HEAT SET UP

The calorimeter employed was an ordinary vacuum thermos flask of 250

mL capacity. It was further insulated with 40 mm thick thermocol to minimize
the heat losses. The calorimeter lid had one hole just large enough so that the
thermocouple wires used for the temperature measurement of the calorimeter
fluid could be inserted.
The soybean grains were contained in a cylindrical aluminum capsule of 45
mm height, 24 mm internal diameter and 0.25 mm wall thickness. The capsule
had a screw cover which was tightened against a gasket to ensure that there was
no moisture loss while the capsule with the soybean sample was heated. Three
412 S.D. DESHPANDE and S. BAL

separate capsules marked A, B and C were used for replications. Another

similar capsule with a hole in its cap, for insertion of a thermocouple was used
as a reference capsule for the measurement of the sample temperature.
For the temperature measurements, three separate 26 gauge, copper-
constantan thermocouples were used as shown in Fig. 2. The potential difference
was measured using a precision potentiometer with a range of 0 to 21 mV and
least count of 0.01 mV having accuracy of f0.2 mV. Further, thermocouple
wires were calibrated against a standard thermometer (resistance) prior to using
them for maintaining accuracy. A selector switch was provided to facilitate the
measurement of temperature of any point using the same potentiometer.

FIG.2. SCHEMATIC DIAGRAM FOR DETERMINATION OF SPECIFIC HEAT

BY METHOD OF MIXTURES

Experimental Procedure
The values found for the heat capacities of the flask calorimeter and
capsules for the measurement of specific heat of rice bran by Sreenarayanan and
Chattopadhyay (1986) 0.032 kJ/K and 0.015 kJ/K respectively, which were used
in the present investigation.
In order to evaluate the accuracies of the heat capacities of the flask
calorimeter and the capsule, the specific heat of the standard material i.e.
 SPECIFIC HEAT OF SOYBEAN 473

rhombic sulphur whose specific heat value was known (i.e. 0.178 cal/g.OC at
322 K)was determined (Sreenarayanan and Chattopadhyay 1986). The sulphur
was contained in the capsule and after maintaining a higher uniform temperature,
the capsule was dropped into the distilled water contained in the flask calorime-
ter. The heat balance describing this process is heat given up by the capsule and
sulphur equals heat taken up by the calorimeter and the water.
The test capsule was weighed before and after filling with soybean in order
to know the exact weight of soybean used. The test capsule and the reference
capsule filled with soybean were kept in the oven which was set to the desired
temperature (i.e. 315 K). After the temperatures of the reference capsule had
reached the desired level, the capsules were kept at this temperature for about
2 h to ensure uniformity of temperature across the diameter of the sample
(Sreenarayanan and Chattopadhyay 1986).
The test capsule was quickly transferred from the beaker to the calorimeter
containing the distilled water (0.150 kg) and it was shaken manually. The
equilibrium temperature of the resulting mixture in the calorimeter was
recorded. The specific heat of soybean was then calculated using the following
equation:

It is to emphasize that either reduction in moisture content or weight of the

sample during the experiment due to respiration was found to be negligible as
verified by checking the moisture content and weight of the sample before and
after the experiment. The specific heat of soybean was determined with samples
of different moisture content. Each test was replicated three times and the mean
value was calculated.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The specific heat of soybean was measured at eight moisture levels. Within
the moisture range of the investigation, it was observed that the specific heat had
a positive linear relationship with moisture content. The specific heat values
increased from 1.93 to 2.91 kJ/kgK when the moisture content increased from
8.1 to 25% d.b. for the mean temperature of 315 K (Fig. 3). Based on the
experimental data, the specific heat of soybean as a function of moisture content
may be predicted according to the following regression equation:
414 S.D.DESHPANDE and S. BAL

C, = 1.444 (1 + 4.06 x 10-*M); (3 = 0.99) (4)

A linear variation of specific heat with moisture content was also observed
by Alam and Shove (1973) for Wyane variety of soybean. The specific heat
values obtained from the present study are in agreement with the results obtained
by Alam and Shove (1973) with the little variation of about 2 to 3 % which could
be due to varietal difference as well as the difference in the mean temperature
studied.

\
7 2.70
LI:
h
n 240

3 2.30
S
2 2.10
%
!l
ln 1.90

O rn
0.08 0.12 0-16

Moisture content (M)

0.20 0.24

,decimal (db)
028

FIG. 3. VARIATION OF SPECIFIC HEAT OF SOYBEAN WITH MOISTURE CONTENT

Linear increase in specific heat with increase in grain moisture was also
observed for other biological materials such as short-grain rough rice (Morita
and Singh 1979), rice bran (Sreenarayanan and Chattopadhyay 1986) gram
(Dutta ef al. 1988), pistachios (Hsuet al. 1991), maize, paddy and pigeon pea
(Kachru et al. 1994) and melon seeds (Oje er al. 1999).
The specific heat values obtained from the present study were compared
with the values predicted by the empirical additive contribution methods given
by Eq. (1) and (2) and using the values of proximate composition of soybean.
Accordingly the specific heat of soybean was found to be 1.65 kJ/kgK as per
equation given by Charm (Eq. 1) and 1.70 kJ/kgK according to the equation of
Heldman (Eq. 2) at the moisture content of 8.1% d.b. The specific heat of
 SPECIFIC HEAT OF SOYBEAN 415

soybean obtained in this study at the same moisture content i.e. 8.1 % d.b. was
1.92 kJ/kgK (refer Fig. 3). Further, adequacy of Eq. (3) was tested using Chi-
square test and showed no significant difference between observed and calculated
values of specific heat at 5 and 1% level. Standard error of estimate was found
to be f0.08% confirming reasonable accuracy of the equation developed for
determining specific heat of soybean.
It is quite evident from the above values that the observed value of specific
heat from the present investigation is slightly higher than the predicted values
obtained from empirical equations. This may be due to change in composition
of the variety used in this study. In addition, the specific heat of sorbed water
was taken as unity, like that of bulk liquid water, and this need not be true. The
specific heat values predicted by Eq. (1) is lower than that of Eq. (2), mainly
because of the fact that the value of 0.4 used for specific heat of fat in Eq. (2)
is for solid fat, whereas the value of 0.5 used in Eq. (1) is for liquid fat.
Nevertheless, these calculations can be taken as showing that the specific heat
values obtained from the present investigation can be considered to be quite
accurate.

CONCLUSIONS

The specific heat of soybean, measured by the method of mixtures showed

positive linear relationship with moisture content in the moisture range of 8.1
to 25% d.b. for the mean temperature of 315 K as given below:

C, = 1.444 (1 + 4.06 X 10'2M)

The specific heat values obtained in the present study when compared with
the values predicted by the empirical methods given by Charm (1971) and
Heldman (1975) indicated the close approximation of observed and estimated
values.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

Authors wish to thank Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi,

India for providing grants to carry out this work at Indian Institute of Technolo-
gy. Kharagpur.
476 S.D. DESHPANDE and S. BAL

Composition of soybean (assayed beans)

Moisture, % 8.1
Protein, % 43.2
Fat, % 19.5
Fiber, % 3.7
Carbohydrate, % 20.9
Ca, % 0.24
P, % 0.69
Fe, mg/lOOg 11.50
Calories, kcal 432

NOMENCLATURE

CP Specific heat of soybean, kJ/kgK

HC Heat capacity of the capsule, kJ/K
Hf Heat capacity of the flask calorimeter, kJ/K
M Moisture content of grain, percent d.b.
rz Correlation coefficient
TCW Temperature of cold distilled water, K
T, Equilibrium temperature of mixture, K
Ts Temperature of capsule with soybean, K
wcw Weight of cold distilled water, kg
ws Weight of soybean, kg
X,, Xc, X,X,, X,, X, Fractions of ash, carbohydrate, fat, moisture, protein
and solid components, respectively

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