Artificial Neural Network Modeling Techniques for Drying Kinetics of Citrus medica Fruit during the Freeze-Drying Process

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The main objective of this study is to analyze the drying kinetics of Citrus medica by using the freeze-drying method at various thicknesses (3, 5, and 7 mm) and cabin pressures (0.008, 0.010, and 0.012 mbar). Additionally, the study aims to evaluate the efficacy of an artificial neural network (ANN) in estimating crucial parameters like dimensionless mass loss ratio (MR), moisture content, and drying rate. Feedforward multilayer perceptron (MLP) neural network architecture was employed to model the freeze-drying process of Citrus medica. The ANN architecture was trained using a dataset covering various drying conditions and product characteristics. The training process, including hyperparameter optimization, is detailed and the performance of the ANN is evaluated using robust metrics such as RMSE and R2. As a result of comparing the experimental MR with the predicted MR of the ANN modeling created by considering various product thicknesses and cabin pressures, the R2 was found to be 0.998 and the RMSE was 0.010574. Additionally, color change, water activity, and effective moisture diffusivity were examined in this study. As a result of the experiments, the color change in freeze-dried Citrus medica fruits was between 6.9 ± 0.2 and 21.0 ± 0.6, water activity was between 0.4086 ± 0.0104 and 0.5925 ± 0.0064, effective moisture diffusivity was between 4.19 × 10−11 and 21.4 × 10−11, respectively. In freeze-drying experiments conducted at various cabin pressures, it was observed that increasing the slice thickness of Citrus medica fruit resulted in longer drying times, higher water activity, greater color changes, and increased effective moisture diffusivity. By applying the experimental data to mathematical models and an ANN, the optimal process conditions were determined. The results of this study indicate that ANNs can potentially be applied to characterize the freeze-drying process of Citrus medica.