Kinetic modeling of mass transfer during deep fat frying of shrimp nugget prepared without a pre-frying step

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of different batter formulation on mass transfer during deep fat frying of shrimp nuggets prepared without a pre-frying step. The effects of soy and corn flour (5, 10%) addition to the batter formulation, frying temperature and time on mass transfer were determined. The results showed an interaction effect of these processing conditions on mass transfer. The most reduction in fat absorption was observed when samples were coated with batter contained 10% soy flour and fried at 190 °C. The first order kinetic based on the Fick's law were used to describe moisture transfer data. The effective moisture diffusivity ranged between 2.05 × 10−8 and 5.71 × 10−8 m2/s with R2 between 0.91 and 0.98, and fat transfer rate constant was between 3.5 × 10−3 and 7.8 × 10−3 s−1 with R2 from 0.82 to 0.99. Activation energy obtained from the Arrhenius plot for the effective moisture diffusivity ranged between 18.42 and 23.84 kJ/mol.

Research highlights▶ The effects of soy and corn flour (5, 10%) addition to the batter formulation, frying temperature and time on mass transfer were studied in this research. ▶ The effective moisture diffusivity ranged between 2.05 × 10−8 and 5.71 × 10−8 m2/s with R2 between 0.91 and 0.98, and fat transfer rate constant was between 3.5 × 10−3 and 7.8 × 10−3 s−1 with R2 from 0.82 to 0.99. ▶ Activation energy obtained from the Arrhenius plot for the effective moisture diffusivity ranged between 18.42 and 23.84 kJ/mol.