Abstract
The purpose of this paper was to study the drying kinetic, quality, energy and exergy performance of green peas in a hot air-rotary drum dryer using the Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) model. The effect of air temperature and rotary rotation speed was examined. The drying tests were performed at three air temperature levels of 40, 55 and 70 °C and three rotation speeds of 5, 10 and 15 rpm. The modeling of kinetic, quality (color, shrinkage, and rehydration ratio), energy and exergy indices of the green pea drying was also investigated using the adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS). The results showed that the energy utilization rate of the process varied in the range of 0.0121–0.1556 kJ/s. The minimum and maximum values of energy utilization ratio were respectively obtained in the drying conditions at 70 °C and rotation speed of 15 rpm, and at 40 °C and rotation speed of 15 rpm. Reducing the drying temperature and speed of rotation reduced the quality properties. Minimum values of color (△E) and shrinkage was 64.95 ± 1.67 and 39.19 ± 1.05, respectively. The exergy loss rate and average exergy efficiency varied from 0.02 to 0.11 kJ/s and from 0.5434 to 0.8382, respectively. The average rate of exergy improvement potential increased with increasing air temperature and rotary rotation speed. The highest R2 value for the prediction of moisture ratio, energy utilization, energy utilization ratio, exergy loss and exergy efficiency with the ANFIS model was 0.9996, 0.9999, 0.9995, 0.9989 and 0.9996, respectively