Received: 20 April 2021 Revised: 24 January 2022
DOI: 10.1111/jfpe.14052
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Design, development, and evaluation of rotary drum dryer for
turmeric rhizomes (Curcuma longa L.)
M. Balakrishnan1 | G. Jeevarathinam1
R. P. Kingsly Ambrose2 |
1
Department of Food Process Engineering,
Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU),
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
2
Department of Agricultural and Biological
Engineering, Purdue University, West
Lafayette, Indiana, USA
3
Physiology, Biochemistry and Post-Harvest
Technology Division, ICAR – Central
Plantation Crops Research Institute,
Kasaragod, Kerala, India
Correspondence
Ravi Pandiselvam, Physiology, Biochemistry
and Post-Harvest Technology Division, ICAR –
Central Plantation Crops Research Institute,
Kasaragod, Kerala.
Email: anbupandi1989@yahoo.co.in
Funding information
AICRP on PHET
J Food Process Eng. 2022;45:e14052.
https://doi.org/10.1111/jfpe.14052
Accepted: 10 March 2022
| S. Aiswariya1 |
Shunmugam Ganapathy1 | Ravi Pandiselvam3
Abstract
Turmeric is a challenging crop to dry because of its heat sensitive volatile content
and browning characteristics. In this study, a pilot scale biomass fired rotary drum
dryer was developed for drying turmeric rhizomes. The drying experiments were con-
ducted at 50, 60, and 70
C air temperatures at an air velocity of 2 and 3 m/s and the
drum speeds of 6 and 9 rpm. The turmeric rhizomes dried at a faster rate at the oper-
ating conditions of 70
C air temperature, 3 m/s air velocity and 9 rpm drum rota-
tional speed. Among the evaluated thin layer drying models, Page model
comparatively gave higher R2 values (0.998), lower sum of square error (0.001), and
root mean square error (0.01) values. The effective moisture diffusivity of turmeric in
the rotary dryer ranged from 0.33 to 0.5  1010 m2 s1. The calculated activation
energy of turmeric rhizomes was 19,338 kJ/kg mol1. The higher curcumin, oleo-
resin, starch, and color values such as lightness, redness, and yellowness value of
4.92%, 16.5%, 58.09%, and 59.87, 28.43, and 74.21, respectively, was observed at
50
C, 9 rpm drum rotational speed and 3 m/s air velocity. The results indicated that
the color of turmeric could be retained by drying at 50
C.
Practical Applications
The present scenario, turmeric has been considered as an important crop against
COVID-19 due to its antiviral properties and also food applications such as natural
coloring agent and flavor enhancer. The unit operations involved in turmeric
processing is washing, boiling, drying, polishing, and size reduction. The amount of
curcumin content presents in turmeric decides its value. Drying is the time-
consuming process compared to other unit operations and has an impact over the
quality parameters of turmeric. Sun drying is the main traditional drying method nor-
mally practiced by the farmers for bulk drying of turmeric rhizomes. However, the
sun-dried turmeric rhizomes lost its product value because of poor quality end prod-
uct (dark yellowish brown color). This could be due to longer exposure of the product
in sun causes change in the volatiles and color in turn degrades the market value and
fetches lower price to the farmer. And also decreased drying rate, prolonged drying
time, non-uniformity, and lesser energy consumption are the other factors that
degrades further the quality of the product. Hence, a drying technology should be
identified to overcome the problems faced by the farmers and also to dry the bulk
capacities of the turmeric rhizomes at low cost. Rotary dryers are capable of
wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/jfpe © 2022 Wiley Periodicals LLC. 1 of 16

2 of 16
processing larger capacities of various agricultural products having wide range of
thermophysical and aerodynamic properties. The current research focused on devel-
oping a rotary dryer to reduce the drying time and also to retain the quality that ben-
efits both farmers and industries by providing good quality product.
1 | I N T RO DU CT I O N
Turmeric (Curcuma longa L.) is an annual spice crop grown for its rhi-
zome. Indian sub-continent was the origin of the plant and at present,
India ranks first in the production and consumption of turmeric. Tur-
meric is also cultivated in some of the Asian, African, and Central
American countries (Jeevarathinam et al., 2021b). Ground turmeric
rhizome (the turmeric spice that is bright yellow in color) plays an
essential role in Indian culture as an important constituent in most
food products. Turmeric, also symbolizes purity, is commonly used as
a coloring agent by the textile industry (Farzana, Pandiarajan, &
Ganapathy, 2018; Jeevarathinam et al., 2021a). In addition, it is an
ingredient in traditional health remedies of many diseases and also is
used as an antiseptic and anti-inflammatory compound. Turmeric
oleoresin has found its applications in many of the food products. The
aqueous extracts of turmeric also possess bio-pesticidal properties
(National Spice Board of India, 2015).
For storing and preserving the quality, turmeric's moisture con-
tent has to be reduced from 300% to 566.67% (d.b.) at harvest to
about 7–9% (d.b.; Borah, Hazarika, & Khayer, 2015). The common
practice of sun drying takes about 10–15 days, depending on weather
and size of the rhizome, but the quality obtained after drying was poor
(Jeevarathinam & Pandiarajan, 2016a). Due to longer drying times and
non-uniform drying, the sun-dried rhizomes show more chemical
changes (e.g., browning) on the surface of the product. Artificially
dried rhizomes retain color than the sun-dried turmeric rhizomes
(Borah et al., 2015; Jeevarathinam & Pandiarajan, 2016a;
Jeevarathinam & Pandiarajan, 2016b).
Conventional high temperature/hot air dryers are more efficient
as compared with open sun drying and also yield high quality uniform-
dried products. But in spite of these advantages, due to high initial
investment and operating costs, these fuel-operated dryers are not
widely adopted by farmers (Jeevarathinam & Pandiarajan, 2016a).
Several researchers are reported the use of convective systems for
drying turmeric (Borah, Sethi, Sarkar, & Hazarika, 2017; Gan, Charters,
Driscoll, & Srzednicki, 2017; Raza, Ali, Yusof, Nasir, & Muneer, 2018),
but higher energy consumption and longer drying time affects the vol-
atile and biochemical profile of the end product. To overcome these
difficulties, renewable energy sources can be used instead of fossil
fuel-based dryers. In recent years, rotary dryer has gained reasonable
importance and various researches mentioned the successful applica-
tion in many foods and agricultural products. Rotary dryer mainly suit-
able for larger capacities, which uses heating medium that circulates
inside the rotary drum and evaporate the moisture present in the
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BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.
sample (Jamil, Arshad, & Ali, 2018). The heating medium may be hot
gas, flue gas, or steam that can be flowed in co-current or countercur-
rent direction. The rate of flow of hot air plays a major role on the rate
of rotation, inclination of the dryer, residence time, and final moisture
content of the product (Yi, Li, He, & Duan, 2019). During drying, the
drum rotates along with the product, and rotation helps to improve
the rate of air flow over the product in turn provides uniform drying
(Jamil et al., 2018). To lift the samples inside the drum, a series of
lifting flights were attached on the inner walls of the drum and also to
improve the heat and mass transfer (Delele, Weigler, &
Mellmann, 2015; Yi et al., 2019). Use of biomass as energy source will
be an alternative drying technique to enhance the quality of the prod-
uct compared with traditional drying techniques.
Rotary drum dryer along with the biomass system can be suitable
for agricultural produces due to its higher capacity, uniformity, lesser
sensitivity to particle size, ease to construct and control (Yi
et al., 2019). The hot air rotary drum dryer for green pea (Kaveh &
Abbaspour-Gilandeh, 2020; Kaveh & Abbaspour-Gilandeh, 2020),
paddy (Behera & Sutar, 2019), garlic bulbs (Kar, Mujumdar, & Sutar
Parag, 2019), mango pulp (Germer, Tonin, de Aguirre, Alvim, &
Ferrari, 2018), pomegranate peel (Galaz et al., 2017), and apple
(Ghasemkhani, Keyhani, Aghbashlo, Rafiee, & Mujumdar, 2016) have
been reported and concluded that temperature and rotation speed
(rpm) has higher importance in the reduction of drying time and also
mentioned that the energy consumption is less to dry the products. In
this context, the objectives of this study are (i) to design and develop
a biomass fired rotary drum dryer, (ii) to optimize the drying parame-
ters such as drying temperature, air velocity and drum rotational
speed, and (iii) to represent the turmeric drying process in a rotary
dryer using existing mathematical models.
2 | M A T E R I A L S A N D M ET H O D S
2.1 | Design and development of the rotary dryer
A batch type rotary dryer of 500 kg capacity was developed at Tamil
Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU), Coimbatore, India for studying
the drying kinetics of turmeric rhizomes. The hypothesis behind this
project was that the cascading motion of raw materials and the mixing
behavior in inside the rotary drum helps for uniform drying of the
product. The schematic diagram of the developed rotary dryer is pres-
ented in Figure 1 and the design details are provided in the following
sections.

BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.
FIGURE 1 Schematic diagram of the rotary drum dryer for turmeric rhizomes
2.1.1 | Drying chamber
The rotary dryer consisted of an outer drum and a perforated
inner drum. A main frame supported the drying and heating chamber,
blower and motor. The main frame was fabricated from a 20-gauge
thick mild steel sheet with dimensions of 1,270  1,600  2,600 mm
and with an angle iron of 35  35  6 mm dimensions. The
following equation was used to determine the length of the
drying chamber for 500 kg/batch drying capacity (Kaleemullah &
Kaliappan, 2007):
4m
L¼
3ρπr 2
where L is the length of the drying chamber in mm; r is the radius of
the drying chamber in mm; m is the weight of the turmeric rhizome in
kg; and ρ is the bulk density of turmeric rhizome in kg/mm .
3
The inner drying chamber consisted of a rotating hexagonal
perforated drum, enclosed in a square casing with plenum cham-
ber at the bottom and air vent at the top. The perforations were
6 mm in diameter per unit volume of 1.78  109 mm3. The
dimensions of the hexagonal drum were calculated
1,150  1,000 mm using the Equation (1), to hold 500 kg of fresh
turmeric rhizomes at 75% of the dryer volume. A provision was
made on one side of the hexagonal drum for loading and
unloading the turmeric rhizomes. The perforated drum was
rotated over horizontal axis with the help of a 60 mm diameter
shaft. The shaft was supported by two thrust bearings through
the drying chamber. The overall dimension of the drying chamber
was 1,270  1,150  1,220 mm.
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3 of 16
2.1.2 | Design of furnace
The heat required for drying the turmeric can be calculated using the
following equation:
qc ¼ mCp ðT c2  T c1 Þ ð2Þ
where qc is the sensible heat of turmeric at moisture content after
boiling in kJ; m is the mass of turmeric at moisture content after boil-
ing in kg; Cp is the specific heat of turmeric at initial moisture content
(M1) in kJ/kg and in
C; Tc2 is the final temperature of turmeric in
C;
Tc1 is the initial temperature of turmeric in
C. Cp value was obtained
ð1Þ
from Balakrishnan, Jeevarathinam, and Aiswariya (2020), Tc1 is the
ambient temperature measured before drying of rhizomes and Tc2 is
the maximum temperature measured during drying of turmeric rhi-
zomes using thermocouples, and it was assumed as 70
C.
The total amount of heat required to remove the moisture from
turmeric in “t” hours of drying was calculated using following equation
(Kaleemullah & Kaliappan, 2007):
Qr ¼ 0:239 ðqc þ Lc Þ ð3Þ
as
where Qr is the total amount of heat needed to evaporate the mois-
ture in “t” hours of drying, kcal; qc is the sensible heat of turmeric at
harvest moisture content, kJ/kg
C; Lc is the latent heat of vaporiza-
tion of moisture, kJ; M2 is the final moisture content of turmeric, %
(d.b.); and M1 is the initial moisture content of turmeric, % (d.b.).
Dean and stark apparatus (toluene distillation method) was used to
estimate the moisture content of the turmeric rhizomes (Balakrishnan
et al., 2020).
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4 of 16 BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.

The sensible heat of turmeric was calculated using Equation (4) kg/kg; Ta2 is the temperature of the heated air,
C; Ta3 is the tempera-
ture of the exhaust air,
C.
qc ¼ 1:10  Cfm  ðT 0  T 1 Þ ð4Þ Assuming the heat required, Qr, to dry turmeric is ≤ the total heat
supplied, Qs, the gravimetric airflow rate required will be
where 1.10 is the product heat capacity of air kJ/
C; Cfm is the rate of (Kaleemullah & Kaliappan, 2007):
airflow, m3/hr; To is the ambient temperature in
C; T1 is the drying
air temperature in
C. G¼
Qr
ð8Þ
60ð0:24 þ 0:45HÞðT a3  T a2 Þt
The latent heat of vaporization of moisture in turmeric was calcu-
lated within a moisture range of M2 to M1 using the following equa-
tion (Kaleemullah & Kaliappan, 2007): Volumetric flow rate expresses the rate of air supply as
(Chakraverty, 1988):

w ð M2 h
i
1:00934M  7:40013eð0:05948MÞ
b
Lc ðM2 to M1 Þ ¼
100 M1 G ¼ Gv ð9Þ

ð2502535  2:386T c2 Þ ð5Þ

where wb is the mass of bulk turmeric in kg.
The following equation was used to determine the amount of bio-
mass need for drying (Kaleemullah & Kaliappan, 2007).
Qr
Biomass required in kg ¼
CV
where Qr is the total heat required in kcal, and CV is the calorific
value of the biomass material in kcal/kg.
where G is the volumetric flow rate of air, m3/min, and v is the humid
volume of dehydrated air in m3/kg.
The humid volume of dry air can be estimated from the absolute
humidity and ambient air temperature as below (Chakraverty, 1988):
v ¼ ð0:00283 þ 0:00456HÞ ðT a1 þ 273Þ ð10Þ
ð6Þ
where H is the ambient absolute humidity of air in kg/kg, Ta1 is the
temperature of the ambient air in
C.
On substituting Equation (10), the volumetric air flow rate will be:
G ¼ G ð0:00283 þ 0:00456HÞð T a1 þ 273Þ ð11Þ

2.1.3 | Construction of furnace

2.1.5 | Power requirement for blower
A cylindrical furnace of 1,000 mm diameter and 1,200 mm length was
constructed that housed a burning chamber, ambient air inlet, hot air The blower hp was calculated from the air required per unit area per
outlet, fuel chamber, and ash outlet (Figure 1). The dimension of burn- unit time for drying turmeric using the equation (Kaleemullah &
ing chamber was 260  180 mm. A chimney of 150 mm diameter and Kaliappan, 2007):
3,000 mm length was fixed on the top of the furnace to safely vent
the heat. A butterfly valve of 150 mm diameter was attached to the G
V¼ ð12Þ
60As Pp
upper part of the chimney to control the temperature of drying air by
allowing the flow of atmospheric air inside the furnace. The furnace
was provided with the tapered end of 350 mm diameter and where V is the air volume per unit time and per unit surface area of
1,800 mm length to pass the hot flue gas from the furnace to the plenum chamber in m3/s m2; G is the volumetric flow rate of air in
blower. To prevent heat loss, the furnace was insulated with asbestos m3/min; As is the surface area of the plenum chamber (vertical to
rope and plaster of paris. air flow) in m2; Pp is the percent perforation on the plenum chamber
in %.
Equation (13) was used to calculate the pressure drop in the dry-
2.1.4 | Hot air blower ing chamber (Chakraverty, 1988).

 
The equation given below was used to determine the airflow rate for ρw 100
Pd ¼ Ps L ð13Þ
ρa 100  PL
drying turmeric (Chakraverty, 1988):

Qs ¼ 60Gð0:24 þ 0:45HÞðT a3  T a2 Þt ð7Þ
where Qs is the total amount of heat delivered by air in t hours of dry-
ing in kcal; G is the gravimetric air flow rate in kg/min; H is the ambi-
ent air's absolute humidity at temperature Ta1 and ambient RH in
where Pd is the pressure drop in the dryer, m; Ps is the static pressure
dropper unit length, m of water; L is the length of drying chamber, m;
ρw is the density of water, kg/m3; ρa is the density of air, kg/m3; PL is
the pressure loss in heater and conveying pipes, % (Kaleemullah &
Kaliappan, 2007). The static pressure drop (Ps) per unit length was
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BALAKRISHNAN ET AL. 5 of 16

determined using the static pressure drop apparatus fabricated at listed air velocities and drum rotational speeds were selected based
TNAU, India. on the reported findings that a higher rotational speed increases the
From the pressure loss and gravimetric flow rate, the horsepower drying time (Kaensup et al., 2002; Kaleemullah & Kaliappan, 2007;
(hp1) was calculated using the following relationship: Kaveh & Abbaspour-Gilandeh, 2020; Mujumdar, 2004) and the heat
transfer will be minimum with higher energy consumption if the air
GPd velocity was higher (Kaleemullah & Kailappan, 2005;
hp1 ¼ ð14Þ
4500 Mujumdar, 2004). Before start of the experiments, steady state condi-
tions within the dryer were achieved by running the empty dryer for
30 min. Once the dryer reached steady state condition, 150 kg of tur-
2.1.6 | Power requirement for electric motor meric rhizomes were loaded inside the drying chamber. During the
drying process, the loss of moisture from the rhizomes was recorded
The motor hp required to rotate the drum was calculated using the every 3 hr using an electronic balance of accuracy 0.01 g. It took
equation below (Ramesh et al., 2020). about 10 min for the weight measurement that included sample
unloading, weighing, and reloading the samples into the dryer.
2πNT The ambient air, hot air, and exhaust air temperature were
hp2 ¼ ð15Þ
4500 ηm
recorded directly using resistance temperature detector (RTD) ther-
mocouples (range 30–200
C). It is more efficient comparing to
where hp2 is the motor horse power; N is the drum speed in rpm; Tq is other thermocouples and also measures the value of different air
the torque in kg-m; and ηm is the motor efficiency in %. temperatures accurately. Equations (5) and (6) was used to calcu-
The torque and motor efficiency were calculated using the equa- late the rate of biomass required per hour during drying the tur-
tions given below (Ramesh et al., 2020). meric rhizomes. During drying, a total of 893 kg biomass was used
for drying; 500 kg turmeric rhizomes that was loaded manually in
9:5488  Power ðhp2 Þ the furnace at a rate of 33 kg/hr. The drying was continued until
Tq ¼ ð16Þ
N
the weight of turmeric rhizomes remains constant during consecu-
tive weighing and reached a final moisture content of approxi-
0:7457  hp  load
ηm ¼ ð17Þ mately 6% (d.b.).
Pi

where load is the output power, Pi is the input power in kW.

2.4 | Drying curves

2.2 | Turmeric samples Moisture ratio (MR) expression can be used to generalize the moisture
diffusion of turmeric rhizomes as given below
The turmeric finger rhizomes (var. Pottangi Turmeric Selection [PTS]
10) were harvested during February, 2019 in Erode district, India was M  Me
¼ MR ð18Þ
Mo  Me
used to conduct the drying experiments. The turmeric rhizomes were
washed with fresh water to remove any impurities and adhering soil.
The initial moisture content (d.b.) of the sample was 354.54 ± 7.18% where M is the moisture content at any time t in % db; Me is equilib-
 400 ± 6.82%. The rhizomes were then boiled in a turmeric boiler at rium moisture content (EMC) in % d.b.; Mo is the initial moisture con-
0.5 kg/cm2 pressure and at 100
C for 15 min. After boiling, the aver- tent of the material in % d.b.; and MR is the dimensionless moisture
age moisture content of rhizome was 410 ± 6.82%  525 ± 9.07% ratio. The Me was relatively low compared to M and Mo. Hence, the
(d.b.). The moisture content of the sample according to the Indian Equation (18) can be rewritten in simplified form as Xiao, Gao, Lin,
Standard Specification-IS: 1797-1985 was estimated using Dean and and Yang (2010):
Stark apparatus (toluene distillation method; Balakrishnan
et al., 2020). M
MR ¼ ð19Þ
Mo

2.3 | Drying methodology

The study was carried out at three different drying air temperatures
of 50, 60, and 70
C, 2 and 3 m/s air velocities and drum speeds of
6 and 9 rpm (Kaensup, Chutima, & Wongwises, 2002). This range of
temperature was selected since the quality of rhizomes reduces above
70
C air temperature (Jeevarathinam et al., 2021a). In addition, the
2.5 | Theoretical analysis of drying pattern
Lewis, Hustrulid and Flikke, Page, and Logarithmic models were used
for fitting the experimental data. A thin layer drying model, represen-
ted by an equation similar to Newton's law of cooling was assumed to
represent the drying behavior of turmeric rhizomes (Parry, 1985).
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6 of 16 BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.

dM   
¼ kðM  Me Þ ð20Þ Ea 1
dθ lnðDeff Þ ¼ lnðDo Þ  ð26Þ
R T

where M is the moisture content at any time t, % d.b., Me is the equi-

librium moisture content, % db, t is the time of drying, h, and k is the 2.7 | Turmeric rhizomes quality analysis
drying rate constant, 1/h.
Lewis equation was obtained after integrating Equation (20) Quality analysis of dried turmeric rhizomes is much needed for the
(Lewis, 1921). optimization of dryer. The important quality parameters such as cur-
cumin, oleoresin, color, and starch content of the turmeric have been
M  Me analyzed and presented.
MR ¼ ¼ ekt ð21Þ
M0  Me

Hustrulid and Flikke (1959) introduced a dimensionless empirical con- 2.7.1 | Curcumin and oleoresin estimation
stant in Equation (21) and modified the drying relationship:
The curcumin content was analyzed as per BIS-10925:1984. The
M  Me detailed procedure followed for the estimation of curcumin and oleoresin
MR ¼ ¼ aekt ð22Þ
M0  Me
was mentioned in our previous work (Jeevarathinam et al., 2021a).

where a is the dimensionless empirical constant.

Page model (Zhang & Litchfield, 1991) was used for describing 2.7.2 | Starch content
the thin-layer drying behavior of many agricultural materials
Fourier transform near infra-red spectrometer (FT-NIR; M/s
M  Me Bruker Optics, MATRIX-I, Germany) was used to estimate the
¼ ekt
n
MR ¼ ð23Þ
M0  Me
amount of starch in turmeric (Pandiselvam, Thirupathi, Mohan, &
Uma, 2015). The in-build library has been created by the manu-
where k is the coefficient of drying rate, 1/ (hn), n is the dimensionless facturer for the measurement of starch content in turmeric
empirical coefficient, t is the drying time, h. powder.
The drying characteristics of turmeric rhizomes was also investi-
gated using Logarithmic model and the model relationship is provided
below (Singh, Sharma, Bawa, & Saxena, 2008): 2.7.3 | Color value

M  Me The color of dried turmeric rhizomes determined using the color

MR ¼ ¼ a þ blnðtÞ ð24Þ
M0  Me
flex meter (model: 45/0
, Hunter Associates Laboratory, Virginia).
The “L” value gives the brightness and darkness and the value
where a and b are the dimensionless empirical constants. ranges from zero for black to 100 for perfect white. “a” value
shows zero for gray, positive value for redness and negative value
for green and “b” measures from positive to negative value and
2.6 | Effective moisture diffusivity and activation positive value gives yellowness, zero gives gray and negative value
energy gives blueness.

A simple Arrhenius Equation (25) can be used to correlate the effec-

tive moisture diffusivity with the drying temperature (Doulia, Tzia, &
Gekas, 2000; Xiong, Narsimhan, & Okos, 1991).
 
Ea
Deff ¼ Do exp ð25Þ
RT
2
where Deff is the effective moisture diffusivity, m /h; Do is the con-
2
stant equivalent to the diffusivity at infinitely high temperatures, m /
h; Ea is the activation energy, kJ/kg mol; R is the universal gas con-
stant, 8.314 kJ/kg mol K; and T is the absolute temperature in K.
The linear form of Equation (25) is used to calculate the activation
energy by plotting ln (Deff) versus 1/T:
2.8 | Statistical analysis
The drying data were fitted with the drying models and the drying
curves were analyzed using MATLAB (ver.8.3.0.532, R2014a). The
best model for describing the drying behavior of turmeric rhizome
was identified based on the highest R2 value and the lowest RMSE
and SSE values. The mean drying data was calculated for each temper-
ature, speed, and air velocity for three replications. The effect of dif-
ferent independent parameters on turmeric quality attributes were
statistically analyzed at 1% (p ≤ .01) and 5% (p ≤ .05) significance level
using SPSS software (Ver. 20.0).
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BALAKRISHNAN ET AL. 7 of 16

F I G U R E 2 A biomass fired rotary

dryer for turmeric rhizomes

50 C 60 C 70 C
2.9 | Cost economics 500
(a)
450

The cost of the unit was estimated based on the materials used 400
Moisture content, d.b. 350
including turmeric rhizomes, dry biomass for fuel, and the cost
300
involved in the fabrication of the rotary dryer. The calculation was
250
done with standard procedure given by Perazzini, Perazzini, Freire,
200
Freire, and Freire (2021) and Kudra (2015).
150

100

50
3 | RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
0
0 10 20 30 40 50
Drying me, h
3.1 | Features of rotary drum dryer
50 C 60 C 70 C
500 (b)
A biomass fired rotary dryer for turmeric rhizomes was developed and 450

presented in Figure 2. The total heat required to reduce the moisture 400
Moisture content, d.b.

content of turmeric rhizomes from 410% (d.b.) to 6% (d.b.) was 350

2.5  105 kcal. The total volumetric air flow rate needed to dry 300

3 250
500 kg of turmeric rhizomes was calculated to be 24.23 m /min. A
3 200
35 m /min capacity of blower powered with 5 hp electric motor was
150
attached with the dryer to facilitate the air flow rate required and to
100
overcome the pressure drop. The horse power was calculated as 2.65
50
that needed to rotate the drum at a maximum rpm of 10. Hence, a 0
three-phase electrical supply with 3 hp electric motor was used in the 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Drying me, h
rotary drum dryer. A reduction gear box was used to rotate the drying
chamber at the preselected speeds. The gear box contained a speed F I G U R E 3 Effect of drying time on moisture content of turmeric
reduction ratio of 10:1 in combination with a motor and a set of pul- rhizomes (a) 9 rpm and 3 m/s, (b) 6 rpm, and 3 m/s
leys. The speed of the hot air entering into the drying chamber can be
regulated through the blower by adjusting the opening and closing of
the inlet (Susanto et al., 2019). Similarly, it took 45, 36, and 30 hr for drying at 3 m/s (Figure 3b) and
48, 39, and 36 hr for drying at 2 m/s and 6 rpm at 50, 60, and 70
C,
respectively. It was evident that the turmeric dried at 70
C, 3 m/s and
3.2 | Drying characteristics of turmeric rhizomes 9 rpm dried quicker compared with the other drying conditions. This
may be due to increase in air temperature (70
C) elevate the heat gra-


The results showed that the rotary dryer took 42 hr (50 C), 33 hr dient inside the turmeric rhizomes that enhances the moisture evapo-
(60
C), and 27 hr (70
C) at 3 m/s, 45 hr (50
C), 36 hr (60
C), and ration rapidly and reduces the drying time (Delfiya et al., 2021;
33 hr (70
C) at 2 m/s, for drying turmeric at 9 rpm (Figure 3a). Sadeghi, Movagharnejad, & Asl, 2019). And also increase in the
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8 of 16 BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.

0.06
(a)
50 C 60 C 70 C (a) 1 50 C 60 C 70 C
kg of water/kg of dry maer.h

0.9
0.05
0.8
0.7

Moisture rao
0.04
0.6
0.03 0.5
0.4
0.02 0.3
0.2
0.01
0.1
0 0
0 10 20 30 40 50 0 10 20 30 40 50
Drying me, h Drying me, h

50 C 60 C 70 C
(b) 1 50 C 60 C 70 C
0.045 (b) 0.9
kg of water/kg of dry maer. h

0.04 0.8
0.035
0.7
0.03
0.6

Moisture rao
0.025
0.5
0.02
0.4
0.015
0.3
0.01
0.2
0.005
0 0.1
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 0
Drying me, h 0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Drying me, h

F I G U R E 4 Effect of drying time on drying rate of turmeric F I G U R E 5 Effect of drying time on moisture ratio of turmeric
rhizomes, (a) 9 rpm and 3 m/s, (b) 6 rpm, and 3 m/s rhizomes, (a) 9 rpm and 3 m/s, (b) 6 rpm, and 3 m/s

rotation speed of the drum creates more friction that heats the sur-
face of the turmeric rhizomes resulting more thermal gradient and also
enables mass transfer mechanism makes the product dry faster and
lowering the drying time (Kar et al., 2019; Kaveh & Abbaspour-
Gilandeh, 2020; Kaveh, Abbaspour-Gilandeh, & Chen, 2020). Hence,
the higher temperature and rotary speeds increases the heat and mass
transfer and also increases the moisture transferring rate from center
to the surface of the turmeric and reduces turmeric drying time com-
paring to lower temperatures and rotary speeds (Kaveh, Abbaspour-
Gilandeh, & Chen, 2020). Similar results of higher temperature and
increase in rotation speed were recorded for turmeric slices (at 70
C
and 2 m/s using infrared assisted hot air dryer (Jeevarathinam


et al., 2021a), green peas (at 70 C, 15 rpm, Kaveh & Abbaspour-
Gilandeh, 2020, at 70
C, IR power of 750 W, and drum rotation of
15 rpm, Kaveh & Abbaspour-Gilandeh, 2020), turmeric (at 70
C and
5 m/s using hot air, Raza et al., 2018), pistachio (at 60
C, and drum
rotation of 15 rpm, Parizi, Beheshti, & Roustapour, 2016), and red chili
(hot air at 65
C and 0.15 m/s, Kaleemullah & Kailappan, 2005). The
decrease in the moisture content of turmeric rhizomes with increase
in drying time and drying air temperature was observed.
During the drying process, there was no evidence of constant rate
drying period and only falling rate drying period was observed. The
drying rate of rhizomes was high at the initial stage of drying, and it
decreased gradually with the increase in drying time. The higher drying
rate at the initial stages of drying might be due to the removal of free
moisture, and the decrease in the drying rate in the later stages was
due to the moisture tightly bound to the cell walls or other chemical
components of the turmeric rhizomes (Jeevarathinam et al., 2021a,
2021b). Higher air velocity (3 m/s) and rotational speed (9 rpm)
increase the amount of moisture removed compared with drying at a
lower velocity (2 m/s) and rotational speed (6 rpm; Figure 4a,b).
The increased drying rate and lesser drying time with increase in
air temperature was due to the increase in difference of water
vapor pressure gradients which removes the moisture quickly
from the product (Balakrishnan, Raghavan, Sreenarayanan, &
Viswanathan, 2011). At the initial stages of drying, when the rhizomes
had high moisture content, the drying rate was 0.046 kg of water/kg
of dry matter hr at 70
C. But with the progress in drying time, and
when the moisture content reduced and approached to EMC, the dry-
ing rate reduced to about 0.02 kg of water/kg of dry matter
hr. Overall, the drying rate of turmeric was in the range of 0.013–
0.02 kg of water/kg of dry matter.h within the moisture content range
of 183–7.5% (d.b.) at air velocities of 2 and 3 m/s. Kaleemullah and
Kailappan (2004) reported similar results on the thin layer drying of
chillies at different drying temperature and air velocity.
The moisture ratio of turmeric rhizomes reduced with the
increase in drying time, at both the rpm (Figure 5a,b). The decrease in
moisture ratio from 1 to 0.02 was achieved in lesser time, that is,
27 hr when dried at 70
C, 3 m/s, and 9 rpm. The final moisture con-
tent, drying rate, and the drying capacity of the rotary drum dryer
were influenced by the rotational speed of the drum and the hot air
velocity (Kaveh, Abbaspour-Gilandeh & Chen, 2020). Increase in the
drum rotational speed and air temperature decreases the drying
time and moisture content of turmeric rhizomes (Kaveh,
 TABLE 1 Modeling of rotary drying of turmeric at different temperature, air velocity, and drum speed
BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.

k n a R2 RMSE SSE

Speed of Temperature 3 m/ 2 m/
Models drum (rpm) (
C) 3 m/s 2 m/s s s 3 m/s 2 m/s 3 m/s 2 m/s 3 m/s 2 m/s 3 m/s 2 m/s
Lewis 9 50 0.0009 0.0008 – – – – 0.971 0.977 005 0.04 0.04 0.03
60 0.001 0.001 – – – – 0.986 0.975 0.03 0.05 0.02 0.04
70 0.001 0.001 – – – – 0.986 0.983 0.03 0.04 0.02 0.02
6 50 0.0008 0.0007 – – – – 0.972 0.973 0.05 0.05 0.04 0.04
60 0.0012 0.0009 – – – – 0.969 0.964 0.05 0.06 0.05 0.06
70 0.001 0.001 – – – – 0.979 0.985 0.04 0.03 0.03 0.02
Hustrulid and 9 50 0.0009 0.0009 – – 1.04 1.03 0.974 0.979 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.03
Flikke 60 0.001 0.001 – – 1.03 1.04 0.987 0.978 0.03 0.04 0.01 0.03
70 0.001 0.001 – – 1.05 1.04 0.988 0.985 0.03 0.03 0.01 0.02
6 50 0.00008 0.0008 – – 1.04 1.04 0.975 0.976 0.05 0.04 0.03 0.04
60 0.001 0.001 – – 1.07 1.07 0.975 0.97 0.05 0.05 0.04 0.05
70 0.001 0.001 – – 1.05 1.05 0.982 0.98 0.04 0.03 0.02 0.02
Page 9 50 0.001 0.0001 1.26 1.23 – – 0.986 0.990 0.03 0.03 0.01 0.01
60 0.0003 0.0001 1.20 1.26 – – 0.994 0.989 0.02 0.03 0.007 0.01
70 0.0002 0.0002 1.29 1.26 – – 0.998 0.995 0.01 0.02 0.001 0.007
6 50 0.0001 0.0001 1.26 1.26 – – 0.988 0.989 0.035 0.03 0.01 0.01
60 0.0000006 0.0000005 1.40 1.39 – – 0.995 0.991 0.02 0.03 0.007 0.01
70 0.0001 0.0001 1.31 1.26 – – 0.995 0.997 0.02 0.01 0.007 0.004
Logarithmic 9 50 0.1471 0.1984 – – 0.856 0.8473 0.9545 0.9507 0.07308 0.07452 0.06942 0.07775
model 60 6.931 4.444 – – 0.7595 0.8002 0.8716 0.9099 0.1233 0.1037 0.1976 0.1506
70 0.1378 0.1688 – – 0.6714 0.7159 0.7552 0.8168 0.1704 0.147 0.3775 0.3025
6 50 0.02949 0.1524 – – 0.8708 0.8757 0.9645 0.9688 0.06313 0.05795 0.05579 0.05038
60 0.1448 0.05937 – – 0.801 0.8345 0.8837 0.9221 0.1221 0.09849 0.2087 0.1455
70 0.1383 0.03397 – – 0.7235 0.7207 0.8153 0.8247 0.1494 0.1419 0.3125 0.3022

Abbreviation: k, n, and a: drying constants; R2, coefficient of determination; RMSE, root mean square error; SSE, sum of squares for error.
9 of 16

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10 of 16
Abbaspour-Gilandeh & Chen, 2020). Sai (2013), Kaleemullah and
Kailappan (2006), and Kaensup et al. (2002) observed similar results
on drying time and moisture ratio for non-hygroscopic material (rotary
dryer at 75
C, 0.25 m/s, 12 rpm), chillies (65
C, 0.15 m/s, 5 rpm) and
red chilli (microwave-vacuum – rotary dryer at 52
C, 20 rpm).
3.3 | Drying models
The drying constant values and the statistical parameters of R2,
RMSE, and SSE of four thin layer models are presented in Table 1. At
all drying conditions, the R2 values were higher than .96 showing
good fit of the thin layer drying models. However, Page model gave
reasonably high R2 value (.998) with low SSE (.001) and RMSE (.01)
values.
The predicted and observed moisture ratios (Figures 6a,b and 7a,
b) indicates that Page model showed a relatively better fit in
explaining the drying behavior of turmeric rhizomes in a rotary drum



dryer. The contour plots were compared between 60 and 70 C of
9 rpm (Figure 6c) and 6 rpm (Figure 7c) at 3 m/s. The contour plots
showed that the higher moisture removal ratio was found at 70
C
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BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.
F I G U R E 6 (a) Experimental
and predicted values at 60
C,
(b) experimental and predicted
values at 70
C, and (c) plot of
moisture ratio (60
C, 70
C) versus
drying time for 9 rpm and 3 m/s
because of rapid moisture evaporation (Falade, Olurin, Ike, &
Aworh, 2007; Jeevarathinam et al., 2021b). At 9 rpm and 3 m/s, 70
C
(Figure 6b,c) showed higher drying rate and moisture removal com-
pared to 60
C and for both temperatures the predicted and observed
values were on par (Figure 6a,c). Similarly, 70
C showed higher mois-
ture removal than 60
C at 6 rpm and 3 m/s (Figure 7). From the Fig-
ures 6 and 7, it was observed that 9 rpm and 3 m/s showed better
drying results. The residual plots of the four models at 70
C are pres-
ented in Figure 8. The plot showed a systematic pattern for Logarith-
mic model, indicating that this model is unsuitable to represent drying
of turmeric in rotary dryer. The residual plot for Page, Lewis,
Hustrulid, and Flikke models were relatively closer with Page model
and showed better suitability. Similar finding was reported by
Kaleemullah and Kailappan (2005) when drying a red chili in a rotary
dryer at 65
C, 5 rpm, and 0.15 m/s. Therefore, it was concluded that
Page model as the suitable model to describe the drying kinetics of
turmeric rhizomes in rotary dryer. Similar results on hot air drying
using the page model with better prediction were reported for tur-
meric (at 51
C; Borah et al., 2015), carrots (at 70
C, Doymaz, 2004; at
75
C, Navneet, Sarkar, & Sharma, 2012) and pomegranate arils
(at 60
C, Kingsly & Singh, 2007).

BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.
F I G U R E 7 (a) Experimental
and predicted values at 60
C,
(b) experimental and predicted
values at 70
C, and (c) plot of
moisture ratio (60
C, 70
C) versus
drying time for 6 rpm and 3 m/s
3.4 | Effective moisture diffusivity and activation
energy
The effective moisture diffusivity was calculated using from the rela-
tionship between the natural logarithm of moisture ratio (ln MR) ver-
sus drying time (hr) at different drying air temperatures (50, 60, and
70
C), 3 m/s air velocity and 9 rpm rotational speed (Figure 9). The
effective moisture diffusivity of turmeric rhizomes ranged from 0.33
to 0.5  1010 m2 s1. From the results, it was found that increase in
drying temperature also increases the effective moisture diffusivity
(Kingsly, Singh, Goyal, & Singh, 2007). The plot of ln Deff versus 1/Ta
is presented in Figure 10. The moisture diffusivity was higher in the
rotary dried samples than the boiled and fresh samples. Falade
et al. (2007) dried yam at air temperature of 50–80
C at 1.5 m/s
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11 of 16
constant air velocity and Goyal, Kingsly, Manikantan, and Ilyas (2006)
dried mango slices in tunnel drier at 55–65
C were reported the simi-
lar effective moisture diffusivity values. The activation energy of tur-
meric rhizomes was 19,338 kJ/kg.mol. As the temperature increases,
the molecules rapidly move with carrying higher kinetic energy and
also it frequently collides. Therefore, the collision proportions increase
with temperature that causes to overcome the reaction's activation
energy. It showed that more the activation energy resulted lesser
chemical reaction. To complete the reaction the molecules should
reach the top-level activation energy barrier. This is the reason behind
the increase in the value of activation energy (Kaleemullah &
Kailappan, 2005). Higher and lower activation energies were reported
as 24,476 kJ/kg mol for chillies (Kaleemullah & Kailappan, 2005) and
22.41 kJ/mol for tomato slices (Kingsly et al., 2007).
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12 of 16 BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.

F I G U R E 8 Residual plots of different models used for turmeric drying in rotary drier at 70
C: (a) Lewis, (b) Hustrulid and Flikke, (c) Page,
(d) Logarithmic model

1 I/Ta(K)
Drying me, h -23.5
0 0.0029 0.00295 0.003 0.00305 0.0031 0.00315
0 10 20 30 40 50 -23.6
-1
y = -0.0921x + 0.4778
-23.7 -23.719
R² = 0.9263
-2 y = 2316.1x - 30.955
-23.8 R² = 0.7637
ln(MR)

-3
-23.9
ln(Deff)

-4 ----- Acvaon Energy

-24
-5 y = -0.137x + 0.291 y = -0.1111x + 0.377 ----- Linear (Acvaon Energy)
R² = 0.9753 R² = 0.9429 -24.1
-24.1345 -24.1345
-6
-24.2
-7
50 C 60 C 70 C -24.3

Linear (50 C) Linear (60 C) Linear (70 C) -24.4

F I G U R E 9 Plot of drying time and ln(MR) at 50, 60, and 70
C of FIGURE 10 Plot of absolute temperature (K) and ln(Deff)
3 m/s and 9 rpm

treatment breakdown the chains of curcumin (alpha and beta –

3.5 | Effect of drying process parameters on
quality of turmeric
Figure 11 shows the boiled rhizomes before drying (Figure 11a),
rotary dried turmeric rhizomes at an air temperature of 50
C



(Figure 11b), 60 C (Figure 11c), and 70 C (Figure 11d), respectively, at
an air velocity of 3 m/s and rotational speed of 9 rpm. The effect of
different speeds of the drum, air temperature and velocity on the cur-
cumin (%), oleoresin (%), starch (%), and color value (b) was presented
in Table 2. From Table 2, it was found that temperature has a higher
impact over the quality parameters and increase in temperature cau-
ses decrease in all the parameters. The higher degrees of temperature
turmerone) into low molecular compounds (Raza et al., 2018) and alter
the structure and nature of constituents (Suresh, Manjunatha, &
Srinivasan, 2007). The lightness of the turmeric decreased with an
increase in drying air temperature. From these results, it is apparent
that high temperature drying causes the browning effect on turmeric.
Removal of moisture, changes in surface texture, higher temperature,
and dry matter content were the factors responsible for the reduction
in yellowness and redness of the turmeric rhizomes. The pigments
curcumin, demethoxy curcumin and bis-demethoxy curcumin are
responsible for the color of the turmeric, due to increase in tempera-
ture or prolonged drying degrade the pigments and causes loss in the
color of the turmeric (Lokhande, Kale, Sahoo, & Ranveer, 2013). The
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BALAKRISHNAN ET AL. 13 of 16

F I G U R E 1 1 Turmeric rhizomes
before and after drying. (a) Boiled
turmeric rhizomes before drying. Rotary
dried turmeric rhizomes at air
temperature of 50
C (b), 60
C (c), and
70
C (d) at an air velocity of 3 m/s and
rotational speed of 9 rpm

TABLE 2 Biochemical profile and color value of turmeric dried in rotary dryer

Color value (value)

Air
Speed of temperature Velocity Curcumin Oleoresin b
drum(rpm) (
C) (m/s) (%) (%) Starch (%) L (lightness) a (redness) (yellowness)
6 50 2 4.4 ± 0.04 15.31 ± 0.02 57.54 ± 0.07 56.91 ± 0.54 26.95 ± 0.14 69.75 ± 0.3
60 4.21 ± 0.05 14.89 ± 0.07 57.4 ± 0.09 56.37 ± 0.16 26.03 ± 0.02 69.42 ± 0.26
70 4.16 ± 0.09 14.75 ± 0.04 57.14 ± 0.03 55.75 ± 0.51 25.47 ± 0.08 68.86 ± 0.03
9 50 4.45 ± 0.03 15.62 ± 0.05 57.44 ± 0.01 58.46 ± 1.13 27.75 ± 0.2 72.33 ± 0.19
60 4.28 ± 0.01 15.26 ± 0.04 57.3 ± 0.06 58.11 ± 0.84 26.46 ± 0.37 71.44 ± 0.11
70 4.2 ± 0.02 15.11 ± 0.02 57.19 ± 0.1 57.51 ± 0.43 25.27 ± 0.11 70.77 ± 0.33
6 50 3 4.86 ± 0.03 15.88 ± 0.04 57.65 ± 0.01 58.99 ± 0.55 25.11 ± 0.33 71.01 ± 0.67
60 4.37 ± 0.02 15.4 ± 0.5 57.57 ± 0.03 58.65 ± 0.16 24.64 ± 0.07 70.43 ± 0.25
70 4.31 ± 0.01 15.15 ± 0.06 57.3 ± 0.05 57.26 ± 0.17 23.97 ± 0.09 69.86 ± 0.09
9 50 4.92 ± 0.01 16.5 ± 0.05 58.09 ± 0.02 59.87 ± 0.31 28.43 ± 0.34 74.21 ± 0.18
60 4.5 ± 0.03 16.1 ± 0.04 57.79 ± 0.05 59.12 ± 0.15 27.47 ± 0.18 72.48 ± 0.37
70 4.12 ± 0.031 16.01 ± 0.02 57.51 ± 0.08 58.67 ± 0.27 26.56 ± 0.21 71.4 ± 0.32

Note: Data are expressed as the mean ± standard deviation (n = 3).

yellowness of conventionally dried turmeric using integrated drying
systems (“b” value 24.26), fluidized bed dryer (19.86), electrical oven
(14.69), and open sun drying (10.93) were reported by Borah
et al. (2017), and it was very low compared to the rotary dried rhi-
zomes and this was due to the lower rate of moisture loss and leads
to the dull appearance of turmeric powder. The retention of L, a, and


b was higher (59.87, 28.43, 74.21) in turmeric dried at 50 C, rotational
speed of 9 rpm, and air velocity 3 m/s (Figure 11b). The color
obtained from rotary dried rhizomes are far better than the rhizomes
dried under other mechanical driers reported by Singh, Arora, and
Kumar (2010) for mechanical drying of turmeric at 60
C and 3 m/s
and Lokhande et al. (2013) for cured sun dried turmeric powder.
The increase in speed of drum and air velocity increases the
value of all quality parameters. The curcumin, oleoresin, starch, and
color (L, a, b value) of 4.92%, 16.5%, 58.09%, and 59.87 (L), 28.43
(a), 74.21 (b) was found higher at 9 rpm, 50
C air temperature, and
3 m/s air velocity. Similar results were reported for infrared assisted
hot air drying of turmeric slices (Jeevarathinam et al., 2021a,
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14 of 16 BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.

TABLE 3 ANOVA (F-value) for quality attributes of turmeric dried under rotary drum dryer

Color value

df Curcumin (%) Oleoresin (%) Starch (%) L (lightness) a (redness) b (yellowness)

Speed of drum (R) 1 4.72* 114.73** 38.49** 55.59** 541.40** 479.46**
Air temperature (T) 2 470.14** 46.45** 140.28** 17.45** 208.21** 83.81**
Velocity (V) 1 339.03** 186.02** 268.06** 81.19** 17.07** 126.07**
RT 2 17.19** 0.69NS 2.76NS 0.69NS 12.71** 11.84**
RV 1 4.34* 14.38** 77.25** 4.71* 337.56** 0.21NS
NS NS
TV 2 100.13** 0.19 4.48* 0.50 4.30* 4.93*
NS NS NS
RVT 2 12.46** 0.36 8.10** 0.58 0.69 2.01NS
Error 24 0.03 0.54 0.08 6.62 1.05 1.00
Total 35 2.21 9.81 2.42 56.27 60.34 77.01
CV (%) 0.85 0.96 0.10 0.90 0.80 0.42
CD 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05 0.05
R 0.02 0.10 0.03 0.36 0.14 0.20
T 0.03 0.12 0.04 0.44 0.17 0.25
V 0.02 0.10 0.03 0.36 0.14 0.20
RT 0.04 0.13 0.051 0.47 0.24 0.36
RV 0.03 0.14 0.05 0.51 0.20 0.37
TV 0.04 0.14 0.06 0.64 0.25 0.37
RVT 0.06 0.31 0.09 0.69 0.28 1.12

Note: F-value was mentioned in the table. **p is significant at .01 level (p ≤ .01) and *p is significant at .05 level (p ≤ .05).
Abbreviations: CD, critical difference; CV, coefficient of variation; NS, nonsignificant.

2021b), blanching of turmeric (Farzana et al., 2018), and solar and
convection oven drying of turmeric (Raza et al., 2018). The statisti-
cal analysis showed a significant difference (p ≤ 0.01) between the
speed of drum, air temperature and velocity for all quality parameter
(Table 3).
3.6 | Cost economics
The total cost for the fabrication of the biomass fired rotary dryer was
calculated based on the available materials, fixed cost and variable
cost. The cost was estimated as $2,350 for the fabrication of biomass
fired rotary dryer. The fixed cost was calculated as $ 1,294 and vari-
able cost as$ 5,881 per year. Therefore, the total operating cost of
the biomass fired rotary dryer was $7,175 per year. The cost of drying
for drying 500 kg of turmeric rhizomes was calculated as $33 per
batch and $ 0.06 per kg. The total operating costs increased with the
increase of hot air temperature, drum speed, air velocity and biomass
(as fuel) resulted that higher energy expenditure was required for
higher drying levels (Perazzini et al., 2021).
4 | C O N CL U S I O N
A biomass fired rotary drum dryer was designed and developed for
drying turmeric rhizomes. The total heat required to evaporate the
moisture present in the turmeric rhizomes was calculated as
2.5  105 kcal and the requirement of volumetric air flow rate to dry
500 kg turmeric rhizomes in the drying chamber was calculated as
24.23 m3/min. Based on the calculations, 35 m3/min capacity of
blower powered with 5 hp electric motor was attached to rotate the
drum up to a maximum speed of 10 rpm. At 70
C and 3 m/s of air
velocity and at a drum rotation speed of 9 rpm, the turmeric rhizome
dried from 410% to 6% (d.b.) within 27 hr, which was lesser than the
other drying conditions tested in this study. Among the models, Page
model better represented the drying behavior of turmeric in a rotary
drum dryer with high R2 and lesser RMSE and SSE values. The cur-
cumin, oleoresin, starch, and color of dried turmeric rhizomes were
higher when dried at 50
C irrespective of rpm and air velocity. From
the above results, it is concluded that the retention of the quality
parameters was maximum at 50
C.
AC KNOW LEDG EME NT S
The present work was financially supported by the AICRP on PHET,
Ludhiana.
CONFLIC T OF INT ER E ST
The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest.
AUTHOR CONTRIBU TIONS
M. Balakrishnan: Conceptualization; formal analysis; writing – original
draft. G. Jeevarathinam: Formal analysis; methodology; software;

BALAKRISHNAN ET AL.
writing – original draft. S. Aiswariya: Investigation; methodology; writ-
ing – original draft. R. P. Kingsly Ambrose: Visualization; writing –
review and editing. Shunmugam Ganapathy: Supervision; validation;
writing – review and editing. Ravi Pandiselvam: Software; validation;
writing – review and editing.
DATA AVAI LAB ILITY S TATEMENT
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the
corresponding author upon reasonable request.
ORCID
M. Balakrishnan https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0148-2809
G. Jeevarathinam https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3283-7265
Ravi Pandiselvam https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0996-8328
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How to cite this article: Balakrishnan, M., Jeevarathinam, G.,
Aiswariya, S., Ambrose, R. P. K., Ganapathy, S., & Pandiselvam,
R. (2022). Design, development, and evaluation of rotary drum
dryer for turmeric rhizomes (Curcuma longa L.). Journal of Food
Process Engineering, 45(6), e14052. https://doi.org/10.1111/
jfpe.14052