Determination of Drying Characteristics and Physicochemical Properties of Mint (<i>Mentha spicata</i> L.) Leaves Dried in Refractance Window

Abstract

Drying is one of the most common and effective techniques for preserving the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of medicinal plants in the post-harvest phase. Therefore, in this research, the effect of the new refractance window (RW) technology on the kinetics, thermodynamics, greenhouse gasses, color indices, bioactive properties, and percentage of mint leaf essential oil was investigated in five different water temperatures in the form of a completely randomized design. This process was modeled by the methods of mathematical models and artificial neural networks (ANNs) with inputs (drying time and water temperature) and an output (moisture ratio). The results showed that with the increase in temperature, the rate of moisture removal from the samples increased and as a result, the drying time, specific energy consumption, CO2, NOx, enthalpy, and entropy decreased significantly (p p p p −7) performs better than the mathematical methods for predicting the moisture ratio of mint leaves.

Keywords

• artificial neural network (ANN)
• drying
• energy
• essential oil