Heat pump drying kinetics of a pressed type cheese

Energy management during drying is a key point for the process. Using technologies like heat pump drying could be an interesting way to address the problem. Drying curves of 10−2 m side cheese cubes obtained during convective heat pump drying at different temperatures (0, 4, 8 and 12 °C) have been examined. A mathematical model is proposed to simulate these heat pump drying curves. The calculated moisture diffusivity was fitted to the Arrhenius equation to express its dependence on temperature. The proposed model provided a good simulation of the drying curves (mean relative error (MRE) = 2.9%) and allowed an adequate simulation of the drying curve at 12 °C of cheese pieces with different geometry and size (0.075 m × 0.130 m × 0.130 m) to those used in the identification of the model parameters (MRE = 0.4%).