investigating the effect of microwave power on moisture diffusivity and drying kinetics of faba beans: an experimental and modeling study

In this research, the influence of microwave power on dryingbehavior and moisture diffusivity of faba bean (dehulled) wasinvestigated. the fresh samples were dried as single layers at four different power levels (220, 330, 440, and 550 w). the results showed that the processing time was significantly decreased withincreasing power (p<0.05). six kinetic models were examined tosimulate the experimental drying kinetics and the midilli modelshowed the best performance. the average values of effectivemoisture diffusivity were calculated to be in the range of 1.92×10-9 m2/s to 5.16×10-9 m2/s, and increased significantly withincreasing microwave power (p<0.05). the average rehydrationratio of dried faba beans changed from 239.12% to 325.05%, andincreased with increasing microwave power. in addition, in thisstudy a genetic algorithm-artificial neural network method wasused for prediction of the moisture ratio of faba beans. thisnetwork structure has two inputs of microwave power andtreatment time. the optimal network contained 10 neurons inhidden later was able to predict the moisture ratio of faba beanswith a coefficient of determination (r) of 0.994. sensitivityanalysis results showed that treatment time is the most sensitivefactor in predicting the moisture ratio of faba beans. in summary,the predictions of the genetic algorithm-artificial neural networkmodel have high agreement with the testing datasets and they are useful for understanding and controlling the factors affecting the drying rate of faba beans during microwave drying.