Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

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Journal of Food Engineering

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A multi-stage combined heat pump and microwave vacuum drying of green peas
M. Zielinska a,, P. Zapotoczny a,1, O. Alves-Filho b,2, T.M. Eikevik b,2, W. Blaszczak c,3
a

Department of Systems Engineering, University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, ul. Heweliusza 14, 10-718 Olsztyn, Poland
Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Kolbjrn Hejes vei 1D, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway
c
Division of Food Science, Institute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research, Polish Academy of Sciences, ul. Tuwima 10, 10-747 Olsztyn, Poland
b

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 6 August 2012
Received in revised form 17 September
2012
Accepted 27 October 2012
Available online 5 November 2012
Keywords:
Green peas
Heat pump
Fluidized bed
Atmospheric freeze drying
Microwave vacuum drying

a b s t r a c t
The effect of multi-stage heat pump uidized bed atmospheric freeze drying (HP FB AFD) and microwave
vacuum drying (MVD) on the drying kinetics, moisture diffusivities, microstructure and physical parameters of green peas was evaluated. The results were compared with those obtained for microwave vacuum drying (MVD) and hot air convective drying (HACD). In case of combined method, the initial
drying rate was about 0.04 l/min. The application of MVD increased the drying rate to the values
0.08 l/min. The drying rates of green peas dried by MVD and HACD were 0.59 and 0.20 l/min, respectively.
MVD samples were characterized by a structure with minimal changes in respect to fresh samples. However, HP FB AFD and MVD satised important requirements, such as high product quality (due to low
material temperature during AFD and low pressure during MVD), and increased drying rates in the nal
stage due to application of microwave heating.
2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Green peas are among the most common and popular vegetables in the world. For industrial purposes they are usually dried
with hot air in static bed or thin layer (Jayarman and Gupta,
1992). The method itself is a low-cost one, but the disadvantage
is that it is an entailing time-consuming process (Senadeera
et al., 2003). Additionally, drying operations that use hot air are energy intensive. Therefore, seeking alternatives for green peas drying is highly important. To increase drying rates, hot air has been
replaced by superheated steam (SS) and used to dry a number of
food products (Pronyk et al., 2004; Zielinska et al., 2009).
The vacuum freeze-drying (VFD) is used as a benchmark regarding product quality. It produces highly valued products with the
highest nutritional value. Nevertheless, the VFD is time-consuming
and its application involves problems such as low productivity,
high xed and operational costs or technical inconveniences (Song
and Yeom, 2009). In order to reduce manufacturing costs, atmospheric freeze drying (AFD) has been developed. Claussen et al.
(2007) investigated the drying kinetics and material properties
during AFD of apple, turnip cabbage and cod and found superior
quality of AFD products compared to VFD products. There has been
Corresponding author. Tel.: +48 895233413.
E-mail addresses: m.zielinska@uwm.edu.pl (M. Zielinska), odilio.alves@ntnu.no
(O. Alves-Filho), w.blaszczak@pan.olsztyn.pl (W. Blaszczak).
1
Tel.: +48 895233413
2
Tel.: +47 73594250.
3
Tel.: +48 895234615.
0260-8774/$ - see front matter 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jfoodeng.2012.10.047

a signicant growth in the potential market for heat pump dryers,

aided by the impact of new designs under development or recently
introduced to the market. Heat pumps used in drying satisfy
important requirements, such as product quality control, low energy consumption, and reduced environmental impact in industrial
drying (Alves-Filho, 2002). They enable drying under low temperature conditions (Uddin et al., 2004).
Application of microwave to remove water from the material
has many advantages. Energy supply to the whole volume of the
material results in considerable shortening of drying time and
therefore it shortens the time of contact between the dried materials with oxygen at elevated temperature. As a result there is a
reduction of negative biochemical effects while maintaining appropriate color and nutritive value of nal product (Kelen et al., 2006).
Application of microwave heating at lower pressure signicantly
increases drying efciency and improves the quality of the product.
It also produces favourable conditions for the occurrence of the
pufng phenomenon, which is opposed to drying shrinkage (Sham
et al., 2001). The potential for achieving a high-quality product of
an attractive texture has directed the attention of many investigators to the applicability of the microwave vacuum drying (MVD)
method to the drying of cranberries, potatoes, tomatoes, bananas
and garlic (Bondaruk et al., 2007; Durance and Wang, 2002;
Maskan, 2000; Figiel, 2006; Clary et al., 2005). Regretfully, the
method requires strict control, as at the nal stage of drying an
abrupt rise in the temperature of the material is likely to occur
(Drouzas and Schubert, 1996). Additionally, the necessity of using
a vacuum raises the cost of the drying process.

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M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

Each drying method has its own advantages and limitations.

Nowadays, hybrid drying techniques are being developed to maximize the benets of different drying techniques, i.e. produce better quality of foodstuffs, reduce drying time and increase drying
rate (Huang and Zhang, 2012). Mejia-Meza et al. (2008) report that
the nutritional properties of berries may be retained to a greater
extent when combined microwave-vacuum, hot-air drying and
freeze drying technologies are employed. Pre-drying of the material using hot air before MVD may reduce the total cost of dehydration and guarantee high quality of material (Durance and Wang,
2002; Figiel et al., 2010). Claussen et al. (2007) report that heat
pump atmospheric freeze drying in the rst step of the drying preserves the product quality with minimal changes. After removing
the loosely bound water, the material can be transferred to different type of dryer to increase the drying rate. A combination of
microwave and heat pump may provide the desire condition of
drying to achieve fast drying rate, lower shrinkage, better appearance of the product and least cost (Uddin et al., 2004).
The literature contains references to the convective drying of
green peas in uidized bed as well as under atmospheric freeze
drying conditions (Senadeera et al., 1999; Alves-Filho et al.,
2004), but as yet no reports are available on the multi-stage combined heat pump and microwave vacuum drying of green peas.
This generates a necessity for further studies on drying kinetics
of green peas dehydrated by combination of HP FB AFD and
MVD. Furthermore, more profound knowledge of the changes in
the properties of green peas that occur during drying is needed
for the better design of drying methods preserving the desirable
characteristics and minimizing or eliminating the undesirable
ones. The multi-stage combined HP FB AFD and MVD, when properly applied, can be used for achieving a high-quality product.
Therefore, the present work is concerned to study of combined
heat pump uidized bed atmospheric freeze drying and microwave
vacuum drying (HP FB AFD + MVD) of green peas and the inuence
of drying methods on the drying kinetics and product quality characteristics. The properties studied are bulk density, particle density, bulk porosity, shrinkage, internal porosity, microstructure,
hardness, size, shape and color.

(5), a microwave generator (6), a microwave circulator (7), a temperature and vapour pressure measuring unit (9). Each time the
portion of about 100 g of green peas was subjected to pulsed
microwave vacuum drying (MVD) at 100 (50) W microwave power
in order to maintain the temperature of the material inside the
drying chamber below 50 C. The absolute pressure in the vacuum
was 3 kPa in the drum that was rotating at 6 rev/min.
The heat pump drying (HPD) system was developed at the
Dewatering Laboratory, Department of Engineering Science and
Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
and SINTEF Energy Research Laboratory in Trondheim, Norway.
The scheme of a heat pump uidized bed atmospheric freeze drying (HP FB AFD) system is given in Fig. 1. Green peas samples
were dried under atmospheric freeze-drying conditions using
air as the drying medium. The samples were placed in a freezer
at 20 C prior to the tests. Samples of 1.5 kg of green peas were
used for all drying experiments. HP FB AFD tests were performed
at the temperature 5 C, which is below the freezing point of
the frozen green peas. Inlet relative air humidities were kept at
low (RH L = 20%) and high (RH H = 50%) level. The ow rate of
the drying air was maintained at the constant level of
4.5 0.1 m/s during all drying experiments. The height of the static layer was 0.090 0.005 m, while the height of the uidized
bed was 0.180 0.015 m. The infrared heater source had a
250 W maximum power and 18.5 X emitter. The distance between the heater and a bed of uidized green peas was maintained constant at 30 cm throughout the experiments. The
semidry product of moisture content about 2.07 0.11 kg/kg
dry basis (d.b.) was transferred to the MVD to shorten the time
of drying operation and aiming to increase the overall efciency
of the drying process.
The drying processes were stopped when there was no variation
in the mass for two consecutive measurements at 5 min intervals
indicating that the samples reached equilibrium moisture content
(Sharma and Prasad, 2004). All the drying tests were performed in
triplicate. Table 1 gives the experimental design and parameters
for MVD, HACD and combined HP FB AFD and MVD drying, such
as temperature, relative humidity, infrared radiation power, microwave power, pressure and drying time.

2. Material and methods

2.3. Rehydration
2.1. Material
The work was carried out using green peas (Pisum sativum) supplied by NTNU in Trondheim, Norway. The initial moisture content
of the material was about 3.23 0.02 kg/kg dry basis (d.b.). Green
peas were dried under different drying conditions to the equilibrium moisture content of 0.09 0.04 kg/kg dry basis (d.b.). The
control sample composed of raw green peas was not subjected to
the drying processes.
2.2. Drying apparatus, drying test conditions and procedures
Green peas were subjected to the three different protocols: (i)
hot air convective drying (HACD), (ii) microwave vacuum drying
(MVD), and (iii) combined heat pump uidized bed atmospheric
freeze drying and microwave vacuum drying (HP FB AFD + MVD).
The HACD and MVD experiments were carried out at the
Department of Systems Engineering, University of Warmia and
Mazury in Olsztyn, Poland. The air temperature during hot air convective drying (HACD) was 60 C. The moisture was evaporated
from the sample by oven drying in a heating chamber with forced
convection (FED53 127 Binder, US) according to the standards
(AOAC, 1975).
The MVD system comprised a motor (1,8), a regulating valve
(2), a condensation unit (3), a drying container (4), a control unit

Rehydration was done by immersing dry samples for 10 min

into a hot water bath lled with water of temperature about 95 C.
2.4. Physical properties
The moisture content of fresh and processed green peas was
measured by the air-oven drying method (FED53 127 Binder,
US) according to the AOAC standards. The oven temperature
and heating period were set at 105 C and 24 h, respectively.
The result was the mean value of two replications. The bulk density of a deep-bed of green peas was determined using the standard test weight procedure (Singh and Goswami, 1996). The
particle density and the volume of sample were determined by
standard liquid pycnometric method. Water-insoluble liquid,
which was toluene of density 0.867(1) g/cm3 and a calibrated
glass pycnometer of approx. 50 ml in volume (LG-3838-3658,
Chemland Ltd., Poland) were used for the experiment. The particle density of the sample was calculated using the formula given
by Vilche et al. (2003). The volume of green peas was determined
as a difference of the initial volume of liquid in a pycnometer and
the volume of the liquid with immersed green peas and
calculated using the formula given by Vilche et al. (2003). The
pycnometric volume of one solid object was determined from
the pycnometric volume of the sample that contained the known

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M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

Fig. 1. Scheme of a heat pump uidized bed drying system: 1 air heater; 2 air blower; 3 heat exchanger; 4 a surplus heat exchanger; 5 uid bed drying chamber; 6
a compressor; 7 air lter; 8 air cooler; 9 infrared heat source; 10 expansion valve; 11 humidier.

Table 1
Experimental design for microwave vacuum drying, hot air convective drying, combined heat pump uidized bed atmospheric freeze drying and microwave vacuum drying.
Sample no.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

First drying step

Second drying step

T (C)

RH (%)

IR (W)

MW (W)

P (kPa)

t (min)

T (C)

MW (W)

P (kPa)

t (min)

50
60

45

100

145
300

5

50

200

55

100

100

5

20

200

55

100

100

5

50

250

200

55

100

100

(1) Control; (2) MVD; (3) HACD; (4) HP FB AFD (RH L); (5) HP FB AFD (RH L) + MVD; (6) HP FB AFD (RH H); (7) HP FB AFD (RH H) + MVD; (8) HP FB AFD (RH H + IR); and (9) HP
FB AFD (RH H + IR) + MVD; T temperature, C; RH relative humidity, %; IR infrared radiation power, W/m2; MW microwave power, W; P drying chamber pressure,
kPa; t time, min; EMC equilibrium moisture content, % dry basis.

number of green peas. Volumetric shrinkage was evaluated by

determination of the ratio of the actual volume of green pea
sphere to its initial volume (Moreira et al., 2000). Followed by
Wang and Brennan (1995), porosity was calculated from bulk
density and particle density. A spectrophotometer Miniscan XE
Plus for a standard illuminant D65, observer 10 and 8 diaphragm was used to describe color parameters of raw and dried
green peas. The display was set to CIE Lab color coordinates,
where L is lightness or darkness, a is redness (+) or greenness
(), and b is yellowness (+) or blueness (). The measurements
were taken directly on the top surface of one object. The indices:
DE (total color difference), DC(total saturation difference), and
DH (total hue difference) were calculated and the results were
analyzed followed by Zielinska and Markowski (2012). The criterion established by the International Commission on Illumination
(CIE) was applied during data analysis (Hutchings, 1999). The calculated indices of color were averaged over 30 measurements.

2.5. Morphology
The image acquisition and image analysis workstation consisted
of an Epson Perfection 4490 Photo at scanner. The analytical procedure involved a series of the following successive steps: scanner
calibration, green peas arrangement in the matrix, matrix removal,
scanning, image saving (2673  4031 resolution, 400 DPI, 24-bit
color depth, TIFF format). The computer-aided image analysis
was performed by MaZda 4.3 software (Szczypinski et al., 2009).
Two morphological features, i.e. length and width were extracted
to describe the changes in size of green peas during processing.
Additionally, circular shape factor was calculated to numerically
describe the shape of a particle, independent of its size. Zapotoczny
(2011) reports that circle presents a circularity reference value
equal to 1 and circularity of an object, which is bigger than 1, is
associated with the degree at which the shape of a particle is
similar to the shape of a circle.

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2.6. Textural properties

3. Results and discussion

Quasi-static compression tests of a single sample were performed on raw (control), dried and rehydrated samples. All the
tests were carried out using a texture analyzer (Stable Micro Systems, TA.XD. Plus, Surrey, UK) operating in the compression mode,
tted with a parallel plate xture for uniaxial compression and a
100 N load cell. During compression experiments the force was applied to the sample by a 35-mm at probe at a constant speed of
1 mm/s until 80% of sample deformation (Moreno-Perez et al.,
1996). The results were averaged over 15 measurements.

3.1. Drying kinetics

2.7. Microstructural observations

The microstructure of dried green peas was measured according
to the procedure described by Blaszczak et al.(2005). The green
peas were cut along the cotyledons (raphe) axis and placed in a xative containing glutardialdehyde (2.5 g/100 g in 0.1 mol/L phosphate buffer, pH = 7.2) for 48 h at 4 C. The specimens were then
rinsed in MQ water and dehydrated in a serial ethanol solution
containing 30 ml/100 ml, 50 ml/100 ml, 70 ml/100 ml, 90 ml/
100 ml and alcohol anhydrous reagent for 15 min in each solution.
After the critical point drying (BAL-TEC CPD 030, Liechtenstein), a
cross-section through the dried cotyledons was carried out. Finally,
the specimen fragments were mounted on aluminium stubs using
silver paste, coated with gold and photographed by using an scanning electron microscope SEM (Jeol 5200, Japan) using an accelerating voltage of 10 kV.

The changes in moisture content over drying time during HACD

and MVD are shown in Fig. 2a. As the drying progressed the moisture content decreased exponentially and asymptotically to the
equilibrium moisture content. The moisture ratio changes vs. drying time indicate that residence times to achieve the same moisture losses are much shorter for MVD than for HACD of green
peas. The drying times for reaching the equilibrium moisture content were 145 and 300 min for MVD and HACD, respectively. It was
found that the application of microwave power at reduced pressure resulted in statistically signicant shortening drying time by
52% in comparison with HACD. Fig. 2b shows the drying curves
for the green peas dehydrated by combined HP FB AFD and MVD.
Samples pre-dried using HP FB AFD until moisture content of
2.07 0.11 kg/kg dry basis (d.b.) were additionally subjected to
MVD until moisture content of 0.09 0.04 kg/kg dry basis (d.b.).
In HP FB AFD, the drying times were considerably longer than in
MVD and HACD due to the low temperature used and internal
resistance to mass transfer. Pre-drying step in HP FB AFD was conducted until 200 min and the slopes of the kinetic curves for AFD
samples were much lower than that observed for HACD and
MVD samples where the slope sharply rose. Then, nish MVD

2.8. Drying kinetics

The drying kinetics were determined on the basis of mass losses
of green peas. The moisture ratio of green peas was computed by
using the initial moisture content and equilibrium moisture content. The equilibrium moisture content was determined at the nal
stage of drying as an asymptotic value of the function tted to the
experimental points (Figiel, 2010). Mathematical differentiation of
the drying kinetics allowed for the determination of drying rates
(Pabis et al., 1998). The effect of drying methods and conditions
on drying rates was investigated. For spherical materials, when
assumptions of negligible shrinkage and constant temperature
and effective diffusivity can be considered, the solution of Ficks
law can be written in the following form (Pabis et al., 1998):

MR



M  Me
6 X1 1
2 2
2
expn
p
F
0m
2
n1 n
Mo  Me p

The effective diffusivity was determined from the solution of

the Ficks equation written in the form of Fourier series and calculated based on the Fourier mass transfer number. This series converged with small differences between neighbouring points when
30 terms were used in the calculations.

2.9. Statistical analysis

One-way analysis of variance has been used to test differences
between the samples dehydrated by different drying techniques.
The signicance of differences between the samples was determined by the Duncan multiple range test at p 6 0.05. The parameters of the model were estimated by non-linear least squares and
the goodness of t of the solution to the experimental data was
indicated by the coefcient of determination (R2). The calculations
were done using STATISTICA 9.0 (StatSoft Inc., Tulsa, USA)
software.

Fig. 2. Moisture ratio of green peas dehydrated by: (a) MVD, HACD and (b) HP FB
AFD + MVD.

M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

was applied to reduce drying times, especially in the last drying

period. The drying times for reaching the equilibrium moisture
content in combined HP FB AFD and MVD were about 300 min
(Fig. 2b). The moisture ratio changes vs. drying times indicate that
there were no statistical differences between the drying times for
green peas dried by HACD as well as combined HP FB AFD and
MVD. Furthermore, no statistical differences (p 6 0.05) were observed among the three trials conducted for different conditions
at AFD.
Experimental results of moisture variation with drying time
were tted to the theoretical diffusion model. In all cases, the values of R2 greater than 0.9 indicated a good t of theoretical Ficks
model to the experimental data. It was concluded that Ficks second low equation is a useful theoretical model for correlating
moisture content with drying time.
Mathematical differentiation of the drying curves shown in
Fig. 2a and b allowed the calculation of the drying rates (Pabis
et al., 1998). No constant drying rate period was observed for
any of the experiments performed. Statistically signicant differences were found between drying rates obtained during MVD
and HACD. During the initial phase of drying the drying rates of
green peas were 0.59 and 0.20 l/min for MVD and HACD, respectively (Fig. 3a).
The application of microwave power at a reduced pressure induced a three times higher initial drying rate than observed for

351

hot air drying, which is in agreement with the data reported by

other authors (Sharma and Prasad, 2004; Bondaruk et al., 2007).
During the initial phase of HP FB AFD the drying rates of green peas
were about 0.04 l/min for all of the trials conducted under AFD
conditions (Fig. 3b). It means that initial drying rate for AFD was
fteen or ve times (not shown in the plots) lower than in case
of MVD and HACD, respectively. The drying rates were enhanced
by the application of microwave power at reduced pressure in
the nal stage of drying. Thus, two times higher drying rates were
observed in the nish MVD in comparison with pre-drying step
using HP FB AFD (Fig. 3b).
The values of effective moisture diffusivity obtained in this
study were in the range from 1011 to 109 that are within the values reported by Panagiotou et al. (2004) for different food materials. The values of effective moisture diffusivity of green peas dried
at HACD and MVD were 1.43  109 and 1.92  109 m2/s, respectively. Low values of the effective moisture diffusivity, which were
between 6.94  1011 and 8.78  1011 m2/s were found for HP FB
AFD samples. Santacatalina et al. (2011) also reported the low values of the effective moisture diffusivities for AFD eggplant, apple
and carrot, which were 5.15  1011, 1.83  1011 and
1.07  1011 m2/s, respectively. Alves-Filho et al. (2004) found
much lower values of moisture diffusivity for HP FB AFD samples
and they were even one order of magnitude lower than that found
in this study. In the nal stage of combined HP FB AFD and MVD,
microwave vacuum application raised the values of moisture diffusivity to the range between 3.39  109 and 3.66  109 m2/s.
3.2. Morphological parameters
The non-dried samples length and width were found to be
8.90 0.03 mm and 8.00 0.04 mm, respectively. Statistically signicant differences between the dimensions of control (non-dried)
and dried materials were observed for all of the drying methods.
The length of dried material was found to be in the range between
6.69 0.05 mm and 6.96 0.06 mm, while width was found in the
range between 5.87 0.03 mm and 6.38 0.03 mm, respectively. It
was found that different drying conditions at HP FB AFD had no
statistical effect on the changes in morphological parameters such
as length and width. This means negligible shrinkage in all HP FB
AFD tests. HP FB AFD caused minimal changes in morphological
parameters of green peas. The changes in linear dimensions of
samples pre-dried using HP FB AFD until moisture content of
2.07 0.11 kg/kg dry basis (d.b.) were in the range between 0.3%
and 3.3%. After HACD, MVD and HP FB AFD followed by MVD the
changes in linear dimensions were in the range between 20% and
27% depending on experimental conditions. The dominant attribute of control (non-dried) sample was round shape and the circularity index about 1.01 0.04. In case of HACD as well as combined
HP FB AFD and MVD green peas, the circularity was about
1.30 0.02. HACD green peas were found to be wrinkled, due to
shrinkage that occurred at elevated temperature, while in case of
combined HP FB AFD and MVD samples, the shape was nearly
round. It was observed that during MVD green peas changed their
shape and a batch of MVD particles was found to be irregular and
more elongated than before drying. Circularity of MVD samples
was about 1.42 0.03.
3.3. Bulk density, particle density, bulk porosity and shrinkage of green
peas

Fig. 3. Drying rates of green peas dehydrated by: (a) MVD, HACD and (b) HP FB
AFD + MVD.

During HACD, MVD as well as combined HP FB AFD and MVD of

green peas changes in structural properties were observed as water
was removed from the moist material. Thus, the effect of drying
method on structural properties such as bulk density, particle density and bulk porosity of dehydrated products was examined. Fig. 4

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M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

presents the variation of bulk density, particle density and bulk

porosity for green peas dried by different drying techniques. The
particle density of raw material was 0.95 0.01 g/cm3. The values
between 0.66 0.03 and 0.76 0.02 g/cm3 were found for particle
density of green peas dried by combined HP FB AFD and MVD as
well as HACD. Much lower values, i.e. about 0.59 0.02 g/cm3 were
found for MVD green peas (Fig. 4a). The bulk density of raw material was about 0.62 0.02 g/cm3. All of the values of bulk density of
dehydrated green peas were found to be signicantly lower than
that obtained for control sample. It was found that bulk density
was strongly affected by dehydration process. More specically,
the bulk density of MVD samples was signicantly lower than
those obtained by other drying techniques. MVD produced the less
dense product with bulk density about 0.28 0.02 g/cm3. The values of 0.32 0.01 and 0.34 0.01 g/cm3 were found for combined
HP FB AFD and MVD as well as HACD, respectively. The nal bulk
porosity of dehydrated products strongly depended on the drying
methods as well as the material structure created under different
drying conditions. Porosity of all the dried samples changed between 0.43 0.03 and 0.63 0.03. It was found that bulk porosity
of HACD materials was signicantly higher in comparison to that

dried by all other dehydration processes (Figs. 4b). It seems that

the changes in nal bulk porosity were strongly related to the
shrinkage occurring during green peas processing under different
drying conditions. The volumetric shrinkage values are shown in
Table 2. Comparing the shrinkage of green peas dehydrated by
HACD with the samples fully dried by MVD or combined HP FB
AFD and MVD signicant differences were found among them.
HACD generated the highest volumetric shrinkage of 59.7 0.3%,
which can be explained by the fact that long drying time gives a
long time for the product to shrink. Probably during HACD case
hardening of the surface occurred and the volume of the sample
became xed at an earlier stage, preventing higher shrinkage.
The three different combinations of HP FB AFD and MWD gave signicantly less volumetric shrinkage, which was between
46.7 0.2% and 50.0 0.7%, depending on drying conditions. It
seems that the solid state of water during HP FB AFD, with restricted movement in comparison to liquid water, protected the
primary structure, and preserved the original structure and the
shape of the food material with about 10% or even lower reduction
in volume, comparing with HACD. Contrary, MVD green peas
developed the lowest bulk porosity due to a limited volumetric

Fig. 4. Bulk density, particle density (a) and bulk porosity (b) of control (1) and dehydrated green peas (29). Drying methods and conditions: (2) MVD; (3) HACD; (4) HP FB
AFD (RH L); (5) HP FB AFD (RH L) and MVD; (6) HP FB AFD (RH H); (7) HP FB AFD (RH H) and MVD; (8), HP FB AFD (RH H, IR); and (9) HP FB AFD (RH H, IR) and MVD.

M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

Table 2
Estimation of volumetric shrinkage (SV) of green peas dried under different drying
methods.
No.

SV (%)

MC (% d.b.)

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9

43.3 0.1
59.7 0.3
20.0 0.4
50.0 0.7
20.0 0.4
46.7 0.2
13.3 0.3
50.0 0.5

0.07 0.02
0.05 0.01
1.96 0.06
0.09 0.02
2.18 0.04
0.13 0.01
2.07 0.06
0.11 0.01

Drying methods and conditions: (1) control; (2) MVD; (3) HACD; (4) HP FB AFD (RH
L); (5) HP FB AFD (RH L) + MVD; (6) HP FB AFD (RH H); (7) HP FB AFD (RH H) + MVD;
(8) HP FB AFD (RH H + IR); and (9) HP FB AFD (RH H + IR) + MVD.

353

dried by MVD. However, it can be seen from Fig. 5 that the samples
still show the at external appearance without marked warping,
which is desirable in case of dried green peas. Contrary, green peas
dehydrated by HACD possessed a wrinkled seed coat and concave
appearance. Surface cracking was not observed neither during
HACD, MVD nor combined HP FB AFD and MVD.

3.4. Internal porosity and cotyledon structure changes

The inuence of combined HP FB AFD and MVD as well as HACD
and MVD on the internal porosity and shrinkage of cotyledon was
investigated. Cross section observations of macrostructure of green
peas processed by MVD, HACD and combined HP FB AFD and MVD
are illustrated in Fig. 6. Macrostructure observations revealed the
presence of pores on the cross section area of MVD and combined
HP FB AFD and MVD samples (Fig. 6). It is also evident from Fig. 6
that samples processed by MVD had much more uniform structure
than the samples dried by combination of HP FB AFD and MVD.
Some cavities and disrupting of the continuity of the cellular structure was observed for the samples dried by combined HP FB AFD
and MVD. As an explanation of the observed changes of structural
properties during drying, it could be presumed that during MVD
the energy of microwaves is absorbed by water located in the
whole volume of the material being dried (Figiel, 2010). MVD created a large vapor pressure in the centre of the material, allowing
rapid transfer of moisture to the surrounding vacuum and preventing structural collapse. Furthermore, the pufng phenomenon, that
accompanied MVD, created a porous structure of the green peas
and facilitated obtaining a desired product texture, and in this
way it reduced the products density as well as shrinkage. However, the MVD dried samples show highly segregated skin, which
can be further released resulting in product losses in packing and
transport. It was also found that HP FB AFD and MVD preserved
the advantages of freeze-drying (small shrinkage) and led to porous structure created by sublimation of frozen water. Due to the
absence of liquid water and the lower temperature required for
the process, most deterioration reaction rates were very low,
which gave a nal product of high porosity. Porosity development
during HACD drying was relatively small comparing with the samples dried by MVD or combined HP FB AFD and MVD. In case of
HACD samples, much more shrunken cotyledon could be observed.
The structure of the interior part of the dried green peas was compact and the cells were tightly packed. In fact, after HACD drying
completion, cotyledon, which is part of the embryo within the
seed, occupied less than half of a space available inside the particle

Fig. 5. Photographs of raw, pre-dried and nish-dried green peas samples: (1)
control sample, (2) MVD; (3) HACD; (4) HP FB AFD (RH L); (5) HP FB AFD (RH
L) + MVD; (6) HP FB AFD (RH H); (7) HP FB AFD (RH H) + MVD; (8) HP FB AFD (RH H;
IR); and (9) HP FB AFD (RH H; IR) + MVD.

shrinkage, which was 43.3 0.1% (Table 2). Thus, MVD samples
were characterized by a structure with minimum deformation in
respect to fresh samples. The effect of drying methods on shrinkage
of green peas can also be seen from Fig. 5. The shrinkage of samples
dried by combined drying method was more than that of samples

Fig. 6. Macrostructure observations of the cross sections of green peas. Drying

methods: (2) MVD; (3) HACD; (5) HP FB AFD (RH L) + MVD; (7) HP FB AFD (RH
H) + MVD; and (9) HP FB AFD (RH H; IR) + MVD.

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M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

(shown in Fig. 6) and most of the volume was empty space occupied by air (the second half of a particle not shown in Fig. 6).
3.5. Textural properties
Fig. 7 shows that there were no statistical differences in maximum breaking force between the samples dried by different drying
methods and control sample. HACD green peas had mechanical
resistance comparable with MVD, as well as combined HP FB
AFD and MVD samples (Fig. 7). After drying and rehydration, statistically lower mechanical resistances were found for all of the samples dried in comparison with the control. It means that due to
extensive changes during drying and rehydration, green peas were
much softer and did not recover their original hardness. Summarizing, mechanical resistance of green peas has not been inuenced
by drying method. However, macrostructure observations (Fig. 6)
revealed signicant differences between the internal structure of
control and differently treated samples.
3.6. Microstructure changes
The pea starch shows a wide range of gelatinization temperatures. Polesi et al. (2011) report three temperatures: 56.1, 74.8
and 89.7 for onset, peak and conclusion temperature. As above, it
can be presumed that MVD and combined HP FB AFD and MVD
were conducted at the temperatures below pea starch gelatinization, while the temperature during HACD was high enough to satisfy the conditions for starch gelatinization. To conrm above
statements, SEM observations of green peas processed by MVD,
HACD and combined HP FB AFD and MVD are illustrated in
Fig. 8. Fig. 8 additionally shows the microstructure of samples
pre-dried by HP FB AFD. It can be seen that the non-gelatinized
starch granules were still present in the samples dried by MVD
and combined HP FB AFD and MVD and the internal structure of
starch granules remained almost intact or only partially gelatinized. Fig. 8 shows that whereas MVD or combined HP FB AFD
and MVD maintained starch granules in non-gelatinized or partially gelatinized form, HACD caused full or almost complete starch
granules gelatinization. During HP FB AFD, the drying chamber
operated at atmospheric pressure while performing mode of low
temperature. Thus, the product temperature has not reached the
starch gelatinization temperature. In this study, the samples predried by HP FB AFD lost about 40% wb of their initial moisture con-

Fig. 8. Microstructure observations of the green peas cotyledons. Drying methods:

(2) MVD; (3) HACD; (8) HP FB AFD (RH H; IR); and (9) HP FB AFD (RH H; IR) and
MVD.

tent. It means that uncompleted starch gelatinization occurred

during nish MVD due to limited water content. If such products
were processed by HACD at 60 C, the inner structure of green peas
composed of a compact starchprotein matrix containing diluted
cell walls. It is in agreement with the data reported by Bondaruk
et al. (2007). Additionally, starch granules heated beyond a critical
temperature (up to 60 C) in the presence of water caused full or
almost complete starch gelatinization in nal product. Thus, their
organized molecular structure was destroyed and a melting and
loss of granule crystallinity occurred (Fig. 8, Sample 3). It seems
that the application of MVD or combined HP FB AFD and MVD
for green peas processing created less rigorous conditions comparing with HACD. In case of MVD, lower temperature in the chamber,
comparing with HACD prevented complete starch gelatinization
(Fig. 8, Sample 2). However, a violent evaporation of water and
melting of starch granules probably weakened the starchprotein
matrix.

Fig. 7. The maximum breaking force for control (1), dried and rehydrated green peas (2, 3, 5, 7, 9). Symbols d and r mean dried and rehydrated samples, respectively. Drying
methods and conditions: (2) MVD; (3) HACD; (5) HP FB AFD (RH L) + MVD; (7) HP FB AFD (RH H) + MVD; and (9) HP FB AFD (RH H; IR) + MVD.

M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

355

tin and further metabolized to colorless compounds (Heaton and

Marangoni, 1996).
No signicant differences (p < 0.05) in color were observed during HP FB AFD (Fig. 9a). The more visible changes between the color of control and dried green peas were noticed for MVD and HACD
samples in comparison with combined HP FB AFD and MVD green
peas and they were in the range of 9.0 and 11.4, respectively. The
results demonstrate that an exposure to high temperature over a
long time caused bigger changes in color between control and nal
product. Less changes in DE were observed for combined HP FB
AFD and MVD samples and DE was in the range between 7.8
and 8.8. It means that better color is obtained by applying HP FB
AFD alone or as the rst step of the drying operation since it preserved the color with minimal changes. Fig. 9b shows that the saturation of dehydrated green peas was seen as much different from
that of raw ones and it corresponded with different values of DC,
which were about 6.0 and 7.5 for MVD and HACD, respectively. The
smallest DC was observed for combined HP FB AFD and MVD and
it was in the range between 4.4 and 5.9, depending on the drying
conditions. The positive values of DC mean that green peas dried
by HP FB AFD were characterized by more intense color after drying completion. Small differences in hue of dried and non-dried
green peas were observed. Dried samples were yellower and the
total difference in hue was in the range between 1.9 and 2.5 for
all of the dried samples (Fig. 9c). However, the samples dried by
combined HP FB AFD and MVD exhibited the smallest changes in
color, saturation and hue, which can be attributable to the highest
content of chlorophyll.

4. Conclusions

Fig. 9. The total difference in color DE, saturation DC and hue DH between
control (non-dried) and dried green peas. Drying methods and conditions: (2) MVD;
(3) HACD; (5) HP FB AFD (RH L) and MVD; (7) HP FB AFD (RH H) and MVD; and (9)
HP FB AFD (RH H; IR) and MVD.

3.7. Color
Statistically signicant differences (p 6 0.05) between the color
of control (non-dried) and dried green peas were observed for all of
drying methods. All of the samples turned lighter during drying.
Probably, due to heat treatment chlorophyll was degraded to undesirable graybrown compounds such as pheophorbide or pheophy-

The multi-stage combined drying of green peas has been developed to maximize the benets of two different drying techniques:
HP FB AFD and MVD. The quality of dried green peas was determined in terms of bulk density, particle density, bulk porosity,
shrinkage, internal porosity, microstructure, compression force,
size, shape and color. The drying time for reaching the equilibrium
moisture content in MVD was 145 min, while in combined HP FB
AFD and MVD as well as HACD the process was carried out for
300 min. The drying rates of green peas dried in MVD and HACD
were 0.59 and 0.20 l/min, respectively. In case of combined HP
FB AFD and MVD the initial drying rate was about 0.04 l/min. However, two times higher values were observed in nal stage of drying, when microwave power was applied. The values of effective
moisture diffusivity of green peas dried at HACD and MVD were
1.43  109 and 1.92  109 m2/s, respectively. In case of HP FB
AFD, the values of effective moisture diffusivity were about two orders of magnitude lower, i.e. between 6.94  1011 and
8.78  1011 m2/s. The application of microwave power at low
pressure in the nal stage of combined HP FB AFD and MVD raised
the values of moisture diffusivity to the range between 3.39  109
and 3.66  109 m2/s.
MVD samples were characterized by a structure with minimum
deformation in respect to fresh samples. MVD produced the less
dense product, followed by combined HP FB AFD and MVD as well
as HACD. A limited shrinkage, i.e. 43.3 0.1% was developed during
MVD of green peas. The shrinkage of samples dried by combined
HP FB AFD and MWD was found to be signicantly higher (between 46.7 0.2% and 50.0 0.7%) than that observed for MVD
samples. HACD generated the highest volumetric shrinkage of
about 59.7 0.3%, Furthermore, combined HP FB AFD and MWD
samples showed the at external appearance without marked
warping, while HACD green peas possessed a wrinkled seed coat
and concave appearance. Mechanical resistance of green peas has
not been inuenced by drying method. However, macrostructure

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M. Zielinska et al. / Journal of Food Engineering 115 (2013) 347356

observations revealed signicant differences between the internal

structure of control and differently treated samples. The structure
of the interior part of HACD green peas was compact and the cells
were tightly packed, while in case of MVD and combined HP FB
AFD and MVD samples, number of pores on the cross section area
were observed. Also, much more shrunken cotyledon could be observed for HACD samples. SEM observations revealed that HACD
caused full or almost complete starch granules gelatinization,
whereas MVD or combined HP FB AFD and MVD maintained starch
granules in non-gelatinized or partially gelatinized form, HP FB
AFD preserved the color of green peas with minimal changes, while
more visible changes were noticed for MVD and HACD.
It was found that multi-stage combined HP FB AFD and MVD
satised important requirements, such as high product quality
(due to low material temperature during AFD and low pressure
during MVD), and increased drying rates in the nal stage due to
application of microwave heating. Summarizing, to respond the
current demand of high quality products, combined HP FB AFD
and MVD represents an interesting technique for green peas
processing.
Acknowledgements
The study was nancially supported by the Scholarship and
Training Fund established within the EEA Financial Mechanism
and Norwegian Financial Mechanism through the Projects FSS/
2011/V/D3/W/0103. The improvement of new techniques for food
drying with emphasis on energy and quality aspects and FSS/2011/
V/D3/W/0102. Evaluation of the quality of agri-food products processed with innovative drying technologies.
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