Comparative Study of Tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) Drying

The tomato (Solanum lycopersicum) is a species of herbaceous plants in the Solanaceae family, native to northwestern South America, widely cultivated for its fruit. A total of 100 g of fresh tomatoes are dried in an oven, in the open air and in a solar dryer, respectively. The kinetics and other parameters were determined: the water content in dry low, the instantaneous drying speed, the average drying temperature, the average relative humidity of tomato, the drying time and the air speed during drying. During solar and oven drying, tomatoes lose water faster, for the same initial (100 g) and therefore, the products receive more energy and heat, compared to drying in the oven 'outdoors. The tomatoes were dried in 1 day in an oven, 3 days in a solar dryer and 6 days in the open air. The shape of the speed curves initially has a short acceleration phase, secondly a rapidly decreasing phase and thirdly, the slopes of the curves tend to soften.