Effect of Soaking Temperature on Water Absorption Characteristics of Selected Ghanaian Cowpea Varieties

• 作者: Ahmad Addo Ato Bart-Plange Nancy Nelly Idun-Acquah
• 来源期刊: 应用科学(英文)
• 学科: 数学
• 关键词: COWPEA Water Absorption DIFFUSION COEFFICIENT Arrhenius-Type Equation Modelling
• 年，卷（期）: 2019,（9）
• 页码范围: 736-748
• 页数: 13页
• 分类号: O1

摘要

The water absorption kinetics of three cowpea varieties (Asontem, Hewale and Asomdwee) was studied following the phenomenological models derived from Fick’s law of diffusion. Soaking of seeds from each cowpea variety was carried out for 10 h at four temperatures (30°C, 40°C, 50°C and 60°C). The saturation moisture content was higher for Asontem (106.9 g water/1000 g dry weight) and Hewale varieties (108.7 g water/1000 g dry weight) and lower for Asomdwee hybrid (100.7 g water/1000 g dry weight), respectively. The proposed Fick’s law of diffusion satisfactorily described the kinetics of water absorption regardless of the variety and temperature. The estimated values for water diffusion coefficient for Asontem, Hewale and Asomdwee varied from 5.12 × 10-10 m2/s to 6.64 × 10-10 m2/s, 3.96 × 10-10 m2/s to 5.12 × 10-10 m2/s, 4.93 × 10-10 m2/s to 6.08 × 10-10 m2/s, respectively. The strong influence of temperature on the water diffusion coefficient was adequately described by an Arrhenius-type equation with activation energy values for Asontem, Hewale and Asomdwee as 7.27 kJ/mol, 7.26 kJ/mol and 6.26 kJ/mol, respectively.