Secagem de folhas de Hovenia dulcis: cinética experimental e ajuste de modelos empíricos que descrevem o processo

Abstract

Originating in East Asia, Hovenia dulcis, also popularly known as “Japanese grape” and “Japanese raisin tree”, is considered an exotic invasive species. Through anthropogenic action, its dispersal occurred mainly in southern Brazil. As an alternative to its expansion, various applications of the plant are being studied, using fruits, peduncles, wood, seeds, and leaves. In the literature, research using the plant's leaves is limited, and since in industry the predominant use of plants is related to dry matter, it became necessary to perform drying and establish the drying kinetics. In this context, the aim of the present project was to obtain the experimental drying kinetics of Hovenia dulcis leaves and adjust the parameters of different empirical models to the experimental process data. The leaves were collected from a tree located at the beginning of the ecological trail of UTFPR-DV and dried in a forced circulation oven at 40, 60, and 80 ºC, in triplicate. Proximate analysis was performed on the fresh leaves and the dried triplicates. The results were evaluated by analysis of variance using R Studio software (version 4.2.3), with significant changes observed in components such as mineral matter, neutral detergent fiber, and ether extract. Adjustments to the experimental data and statistical analyses were also performed using R Studio software, with statistical metrics including the coefficient of determination, root mean square error, mean absolute error, and Akaike information criterion. The model that best globally described the drying kinetics of Hovenia dulcis leaves was the Modified Page model.