Modelling drying kinetic of oyster mushroom dehydration – The optimization of drying conditions for dehydratation of Pleurotus species

Pleurotus drying was well-studied because of the necessity in storage and transportation as well as human-eating preferences. Dehydration of mushroom at different temperatures was investigated to evaluate the effect of drying temperature on moisture content and the drying kinetic for two species namely, Pleurotus florida (P. florida) and Pleurotus sajor-caju (P. sajor-caju) via natural convective dehydration drying mode, which forces us to an important requirement in energy consumption for environmental protection. Earlier models of drying kinetics for food materials were examined to describe the behavior of dried mushrooms and to find which the concordance of the model to temperature and time of dehydration. The final moisture content was achieved 0.04 kg water/kg dry matter for both experimental temperatures, however, drying temperature at 70 °C was chosen for further drying process due to attain drying time at 520 min and the effective moisture diffusion coefficient, D_eff in high value at 7.42 × 10⁻¹⁰ and 7.85 × 10⁻¹⁰ m²/s as well the activation energy of 23 and 21 kJ/mol for P. florida and P. sajor-caju, respectively. Although, with more dominant in value of D_eff as drying mushrooms at 80 °C for 420 min to achieve the final moisture in comparison to remaining temperatures, this temperature was not an optimal option for dehydrating mushrooms due to affecting sensory, shrinkage and energy consumption.