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Performance analysis of drying of green olive in

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ARTICLE in JOURNAL OF FOOD ENGINEERING JUNE 2007
Impact Factor: 2.58 DOI: 10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2006.09.017

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Journal of Food Engineering 80 (2007) 11881193

www.elsevier.com/locate/jfoodeng

Performance analysis of drying of green olive in a tray dryer

Neslihan Colak
b

a,*,1

, Arif Hepbasli

a
Solar Energy Institute, Ege University, 35100 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey
Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Ege University, 35100 Bornova, Izmir, Turkey

Received 26 January 2006; received in revised form 27 August 2006; accepted 14 September 2006
Available online 7 November 2006

Abstract
This paper deals with the performance evaluation of a single layer drying process of green olives in a tray dryer using exergy analysis
method. Green olive was used as the test material being dried. Drying process was realized at four dierent drying air temperatures (40,
50, 60 and 70 C) and a constant relative humidity of 15%. The eects of temperatures and mass ow rates were investigated. Maximum
exergy eciency of the drying chamber was obtained at a temperature of 70 C and a drying air mass ow rate of 0.015 kg/s with
0.0004 kg/s of olive. The exergy eciency values were found to be in the range of 68.65%91.79% from 40 C to 70 C with drying
air mass ow rates of 0.01 kg/s0.015 kg/s.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Drying; Exergy analysis; Green olive

1. Introduction
Most of the olive production is destined for olive oil;
however, a considerable part of its processed to dierent
types of olives for direct human consumption. Among
these products, fermented and black table olives are very
important products for South Europe, including Turkey.
According to FAO (2003), 6,000,000 tons of table olives
are produced worldwide. Spain, Greece, Italy, Tunisia
and Turkey together, which are important olive oil producers in the Mediterranean basin, have 97% of worldwide
olive oil production (Lopez-Villalta, 1998). Amount of
olive production in Turkey is estimated to be
1,800,000 tons (DIE, 2002).
Exergy analyses can reveal whether or not and by how
much it is possible to design more ecient thermal systems
by reducing the sources of existing ineciencies (Dincer &

*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +90 232 388 4000x1918 17; fax: +90 232
388 8562.
E-mail addresses: neslihan.colak@ege.edu.tr (N. Colak), arif.hepbasli@ege.edu.tr (A. Hepbasli).
1
On leave: Food Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering,
Pamukkale University, 20020 Camlik, Denizli, Turkey.

0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2006.09.017

Sahin, 2004). Exergy analysis has been applied successfully

to various areas of engineering applications (Szargut, Morris, & Stewart, 1988).
During the past few decades, thermodynamic analyses,
particularly exergy analyses, have appeared to be an essential tool for system design, analyses and optimization of
thermal systems (Dincer & Sahin, 2004). For evaluating
the performance of food systems, energy analysis method
has been widely used, while the studies on exergy analysis
are relatively few in numbers. The studies conducted on
exergy analyses of food systems may be reviewed in two
groups as follows: (i) Exergy analyses of various food processes in general (i.e., Balkan, Colak, & Hepbasli, 2005;
Bayrak, Midilli, & Nurveren, 2003; Tekin & Bayramoglu,
1998; Topic, 1995) and (ii) exergy analyses of food drying
(i.e., Akpinar, 2004, Akpinar, Midilli, & Bicer, 2005,
2006; Dincer & Sahin, 2004; Midilli & Kucuk, 2003; Syahrul, Hamdullahpur, & Dincer, 2002).
Topic (1995) presented a mathematical model for exergy
analyses of an industrial system for a high temperature forage drying. Tekin and Bayramoglu (1998) studied about
exergy loss minimization analyses of a sugar production
process from a sugar beet. Bayrak et al. (2003) performed
energy and exergy analyses of sugar production stages.

N. Colak, A. Hepbasli / Journal of Food Engineering 80 (2007) 11881193

1189

Nomenclature
C
E_
_
Ex
h
I_
IP_
m_
P
Q_
R
S_
s
T
t
W_
X

specic heat, kJ kg1 K1

rate of net energy transfer, kJ s1
exergy rate, kJ s1
specic enthalpy, kJ kg1
rate of irreversibility (exergy destroyed), kJ s1
rate of improvement potential, kJ s1
mass ow rate, kg s1
pressure, kPa
heat transfer rate, kJ s1
gas constant, J kg1 K1
rate of entropy, kJ s1 K1
specic entropy, kJ kg1 K1
temperature, C or K
time, s
work rate, kJ s1
weight fraction of dry matter, dimensionless

Greek symbols
g
exergy eciency, dimensionless
w
ow exergy, kJ kg1 s
w
specic humidity, g g1

Balkan et al. (2005) conducted a study on the performance

evaluation of a triple eect evaporator with forward feed
using exergy analysis method.
Syahrul et al. (2002) carried out a thermodynamic analysis of the uidized bed drying process of moist particles to
optimize the input and output conditions using energy and
exergy models. Midilli and Kucuk (2003) performed the
energy and exergy analyses of the drying process of shelled
and unshelled pistachios using a solar drying cabinet. Dincer and Sahin (2004) developed a new model for thermodynamic analyses, in terms of exergy, of a drying process.
Akpinar (2004) studied on energy and exergy analyses of
drying of red pepper slices in a convective type dryer. Akpinar et al. (2005, 2006) performed energy and exergy analyses of potato and pumpkin drying processes via cyclone
type dryer.
This study performs an exergy analysis of thin layer drying of green olive in a tray dryer. The dried green olive is a
new product, which is proposed as snack food.
2. Materials and procedure
2.1. Experimental set-up
Drying experiments were performed in a laboratory
scale dryer constructed in the Department of Agricultural
Machinery, Faculty of Agriculture, Ege University, Izmir,
Turkey (Gunhan, Demir, Hancioglu, & Hepbasli, 2005;
Ongen, Sargn, Tetik, & Kose, 2005; Yagcioglu, Demir,
& Gunhan, 2001). The dryer consists of mainly three subsystems, namely (a) air supply unit, (b) drying unit with

Subscripts
a
air
b
boundary
c
carbohydrate
da
drying air
dest
destroyed, destruction
e
energy
evap
evaporation
ex
exergetic, exergy
f
fat

ber
gen
generation
in
inlet
k
location
L
loss
m
material
out
outlet
p
protein
v
vapor
w
water
0
restricted dead state

heater and humidier, and (c) data acquisition and electronic control unit.
Temperature control, data acquisition and storage as
well as the general supervision of the unit, start-up and
shut down electric heaters, injecting hot water into the air
stream and circulating cold water through the cooling
tower are done by the GENIE data acquisition software.
2.2. Experimental procedure
Measurements were performed to determine exergy eciency of the system. Before starting experiments, the system was run for at least one hour to obtain steady-state
conditions.
Olive samples (Domat variety) were obtained locally.
They were calibrated (140180 particles/kg) and stored
overnight at T = (10 2) C before processing. The procedure for preparing the product studied consists of treating
the fruits with 2% NaOH solution, which hydrolyses the
bitter glycoside oleuropein and increases the permeability
of the olive skin, followed by water washes to remove the
excess alkali. Subsequently, a 7% (w/v) NaCl solution is
added to the fruits, in which they undergo spontaneous lactic acid fermentation (Fernandez-Diez et al., 1985). When
the fermentation was completed acidity and brine concentration were kept constant during storage. After the fermentation process, stones were removed. The amount of
olive to be dried is 4.48 kg.
After the dryer reached steady-state conditions, the
olives were put on the tray of dryer and left to dry. Drying
experiments were carried out at four temperatures (40, 50,

1190

N. Colak, A. Hepbasli / Journal of Food Engineering 80 (2007) 11881193

60 and 70 C) in order to evaluate the eect of air temperature on the drying process. Drying air velocity was kept
constant at 1 m/s and relative humidity was maintained
at 15%. Initial temperature of olive is 18 C and inlet water
content is 76.29% (wet basis). Drying was continued until
the mass of the samples reached a constant value. During
the experiments, ambient temperature and relative humidity, inlet and outlet temperatures of drying air in the dryer
chamber were recorded.
Moisture content of olive fruit was determined by
AOAC method at 70 C and 400 mmHg in a vacuum oven.
Oil content was analyzed by using Abencor system and calculated as mass fraction of oil in %. Protein (Nx6.25) was
determined as total nitrogen according to the Kjeldahl
method with the addition of Kjeltabs ST as catalyst. The
salt content of samples was analyzed by using the Mohr
method (AOAC, 1975) (Ongen et al., 2005).

Table 1
Total uncertainties of the measured parameters and experimental results
Description

Unit

Total uncertainty
(%)

Temperature of drying air

Temperature of product
Boundary temperature of drying
chamber
Mass ow rate of air
Mass ow rate of product
Relative humidity of drying air
Water content of product
Enthalpy of drying air
Entropy of drying air
Specic heat of product
Entropy of product

C
C
C

1.59
1.59
1.59

kg s1
kg s1
%
%
kJ kg1
kJ kg1 K1
kJ kg1 K1
kJ kg1 K1

3.00
1.00
0.10
1.00
0.10
0.10
0.10
0.10

_ out
_ in  Ex
I P_ 1  gEx

3. Analysis
3.3. Determination of thermal properties of olive
3.1. Uncertainty analysis
Uncertainty analysis is needed to prove the accuracy of
the experiments. An uncertainty analysis was performed
using the method described by Holman (1994). In the present study, the temperatures, pressures and ow rates were
measured with appropriate instruments claried before.
The total uncertainties of these parameters calculated are
given in Table 1.

3.3.1. Determination of specic heats

In this study, the specic heat for foods was determined
using the relations proposed by Choi and Okos (1986).
X
C
CiX i
5
with the specic heat of pure components given as (Rahman, 1995).
C C w X w C p X p C f X f C c X c C fi X fi C ash X ash

3.2. Exergy balance and exergy improvement potential

equations

The composition of olive which used in the calculation of

specic heat is presented in Table 2.

The general exergy balance can be expressed in the rate

form as
X
X
X
_ in 
_ out
_ dest or
Ex
Ex
Ex


X
X
T0 _
1
m_ in w
Qk  W_
Tk
X
_ dest
1

m_ out w Ex

3.3.2. Determination of entropies

The specic entropy of olive at the inlet temperature
(Tm1) is calculated as (Syahrul et al., 2002)
sm1  sm0 C m1 lnT m1 =T m0

w h  h0  T 0 s  s0

3.4. Performing exergy analysis

The exergy destroyed or the irreversibility may be

expressed as follows:
_ dest T 0 S_ gen
I_ Ex

where S_ gen is the rate of entropy.

Van Gool (1997) has also proposed that maximum
improvement in the exergy eciency for a process or system is obviously achieved when the exergy loss or irrevers_ in  Ex
_ out is minimized. Consequently, he
ibility Ex
suggested that it is useful to employ the concept of an exergetic improvement potentialwhen analyzing dierent processes or sectors of the economy. This improvement
_ is given by (Hampotential in the rate form, denoted IP,
mond & Stapleton, 2001)

where Tm0 is the reference temperature, which is taken to

be 15 C in this study.

Total exergy inow, outow and losses of the tray and

the drying chamber were estimated based on the exergy
analysis, which determines the exergy values at steady-state
points and the reason of exergy variation for the process.
Table 2
The composition of olives used (Ongen et al., 2005)
Components

Mass fraction (%)

Water
Oil
Protein
Carbohydrate
Fibre
Ash

76.29
14.67
1.13
3.32
4.09
0.50

N. Colak, A. Hepbasli / Journal of Food Engineering 80 (2007) 11881193

To evaluate the entropy of moist air, the contribution of

each component in the mixture is determined at the mixture temperature and the partial pressure of the component
(Syahrul et al., 2002):


Pa
Pv
sda sa  Ra ln w sv  Rv ln
8
P0
P0
Exergy balance equation for the tray dryer is,
_ m2  Ex
_ m1 Ex
_ da1  Ex
_ da2 Ex
_ evap  Ex
_ loss  Ex
_ dest
Ex

The specic exergies at the inlet (wm1 ) of the material

and with a stream of drying air entering the dryer (wda1)
are calculated as follows, respectively (Syahrul et al., 2002)
wm1 hm1  hm0  T 0 sm1  sm0
wda1 h1  h0  T 0 s1  s0

10
11

The heat transfer rate due to phase change Q_ evap , the

rate of exergy transfer due to evaporation of the dryer
Ex_ evap , the heat transfer rate to the environment Q_ loss ,
and the rate of exergy loss to the surrounding (Ex_ loss are
determined as follows, respectively (Syahrul et al., 2002):
Q_ evap m_ w  hfg


_Exevap 1  T 0 Q_ evap
T m2
Q_ loss Q_ evap  m_ 1 hm2  hm1 m_ da hda1  hda2


_Exloss 1  T 0 Q_ loss
Tb

12
13
14
15

3.5. Exergy eciencies of tray drying

1191

The eect of hot air drying on the quality characteristics

of green olives was investigated by Ongen et al. (2005). In
this study, it was reported that samples dried at 70 C had
signicantly dierent color as compared to other temperature applications because of increasing in the degree of
browning. Ongen et al. (2005) also studied on the quality
characteristics of the oil after drying process. Based on
the composition, color, oil and sensory analyses, drying
of green olives at 50 C gave the acceptable nal product.
The exergy analyses of a single layer drying process of
green olives were performed by using data obtained from
the experiments. The results obtained from these calculations are presented in Figs. 14 and Table 3, while they
are discussed as follows:
Fig. 1 presents the variation of exergy eciency as a
function of mass ow rate of drying air at temperatures
between 40 and 70 C. From this gure, increasing mass
ow rate augments the exergy eciency. Maximum exergy
eciency of 91.79% is obtained at a drying air of 70 C
with a mass ow rate of 0.015 kg/s. Minimum value of
exergy eciency is 68.65%, while drying air temperature
is 40 C and mass ow rate is 0.01 kg/s. By comparison,
Akpinar (2004) reported the exergy eciency values
between 71 and 96.68% and 69.81and 97.12% at drying
temperatures of 55 and 60 C for drying of red pepper slices
in a convective type dryer, respectively. The exergy eciency values between 30.81 and 100 and 46.97 and 100
were also obtained by Akpinar et al. (2006) at drying temperatures of 60 and 70 C for drying of pumpkin slices in a
cylone type dryer, respectively. It can be seen from Fig. 2,
increasing the weight of olive inuences the exergy e-

The exergy eciency of the dryer can be dened as the

ratio of the product exergy to exergy inow for the chamber. Thus, the general form of exergy eciency is written as
(Akpinar, 2004):
gex 1 

_ loss
Ex
_ in
Ex

16

4. Results and discussion

In this section, the eects of the drying air temperature,
the mass ow rate of drying air and olives on the system performance are discussed. The polynomial relations for the
variations of specic heat and enthalpy of olives with temperature and composition were obtained with the help of
a regression program using the numerical values of specic
heats and enthalpies at some temperatures from Mannaperuma and Singh (1989). The entropy of olives at the inlet
was calculated from Eq. (7), while that at the outlet was
made in a similar manner. Exergy analyses of the tray dryer
were determined for 15% relative humidity, 40, 50, 60 and
70 C drying air temperatures and 1 m s1 air velocity. In
addition to these, a parametric study was undertaken to calculate exergy eciencies for dierent drying air velocities
and mass ow rates of olives.

Fig. 1. Variation of exergy eciencies at dierent mass ow rates of

drying air (Mass ow rate of olives: 0.00015 kg s1).

Fig. 2. Variation of exergy eciencies at dierent mass ow rates of olive

(Mass ow rate of air: 0.01 kg s1).

1192

N. Colak, A. Hepbasli / Journal of Food Engineering 80 (2007) 11881193

perature of drying air increases from 40 to 70 C. Total

uncertainties associated with the calculated values are listed
in Table 3.
5. Conclusions

-1

Improvement potential rates (kJ s)

Fig. 3. Variation of exergy loss and eciency at dierent boundary

temperatures of dryer (Drying air temperature is 70 C and mass ow rate
of air is 0.01 kg s1).

0.20

0.15

0.10

0.05
40

50
60
o
Temperature of drying air ( C)

70

Fig. 4. Variation of improvement potential rates at dierent temperatures

of drying air (Mass ow rate of drying air is 0.01 kg s1).
Table 3
Total uncertainties of the calculated parameters
Description
_ loss
Ex
_ D
Ex
_ evap
Ex
_ P
Ex
in
_ P
Ex
out
_ da
Ex
in
_ da
Ex
out
gex
IP_

Nominal value
0.1795
0.1041
0.3646
0.0001
0.0036
1.2611
1.3386
0.8577
0.1032

Unit
1

kJ s
kJ s1
kJ s1
kJ s1
kJ s1
kJ s1
kJ s1
kJ s1

Total uncertainty (%)

1.59
1.83
0.09
0.20
0.20
0.60
0.60
7.31
1.99

ciency. Exergy used for drying the product increases with

the increase in the product mass. For this reason, exergy
eciency rises. Exergy eciency would be increased if the
amount of the product dried in the drying cabinet were
increased. However, this increase in the eciency would
be relatively lower than the eciency obtained from the
increase in the drying air mass ow rate. Fig. 3 exhibits
the variation of exergy losses and exergy eciency of the
dryer at dierent boundary temperatures of the dryer at
70 C drying air temperature. Exergy loss of the drying
chamber at dierent drying air temperatures is approximately constant. If the boundary temperature of the drying
chamber increases, exergy loss increases. Nevertheless, this
augmentation causes the falling of exergy eciency. Fig. 4
illustrates the variation of improvement potential at dierent drying air temperatures. The values of improvement
potential change from 0.142 to 0.103 kJ s1, while the tem-

This paper has presented an exergy analysis of drying

process of green olive. The experimental data obtained
from the measurements were utilized to conduct a system
performance evaluation of energy and exergy eciencies
and its exergetic improvement potential. Exergy destructions (representing the losses) in the system were also
quantied.
The following main conclusions may be drawn from the
main results of the present study:
(a) Minimum and maximum exergy eciency values are
obtained to be 68.65% and 91.79% at 40 C and 70 C
with mass ow rates of 0.01 kg s1 and 0.015 kg s1,
respectively.
(b) It is proposed that the boundary temperature of the
drying chamber should be decreased in order to
obtain a lower exergy loss and higher exergy
eciency.
(c) Based on the quality analyses, the green olive dried at
a temperature of 50 C was found to be in an acceptable property. In terms of exergy eciency, the drying process realized at a temperature of 70 C was
obtained to be the best. When the quality properties
were investigated, it was seen that the drying results
at 50 and 60 C were not very much dierent from
each one. This temperature dierence of 10 C
resulted in an increase of 13.66% in the exergy
eciency.
(d) The analysis should provide a designer with a better,
quantitative grasp of the ineciencies and their relative magnitudes. Furthermore, the results can focus
an engineers attention on components where the
greatest potential is destroyed and quantify the extent
to which modication of one component aects,
favorably or unfavorably, the performance of other
components of the system.

Acknowledgements
The authors thank Prof. Dr. Abdulkadir Yagcioglu and
his team from Department of Agricultural Machinery,
Faculty of Agriculture, Ege University in Izmir, Turkey.
In addition, the valuable comments of the reviewers are
gratefully acknowledged.
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