Utilization of drumstick (Moringa oleifera) for extraction, microencapsulation and designing health foods

Drumstick (Moringa oleifera) is an underutilized food commodity, despite of having potential, to be used as functional food ingredient in different food applications. The effect of air velocity and temperature on drying kinetics of the drumstick (Moringa oleifera) leaves in a forced convective dryer was investigated. The drumstick leaves were dried in the temperature range of 50-80ºC, at different air velocity (Dv) of 0.5 and 1.3 m/s. Experimental data obtained for the samples for color, drying rate and drying time proved that samples dried at 70ºC and air velocity of 1.3 m/s yielded the product superior in terms of both quality and energy efficiency as compared to other samples. Mathematical models were fitted to the experimental data and the performance of these models was evaluated by comparing the coefficient of determination (R2), reduced chi-square (¿2) and RMSE between the observed and predicted moisture ratio. Verma and Logarithmic model gave the best results for describing the drying kinetics of drumstick leaves. Activation energy for drumstick leaves dried with air velocity, 0.5 and 1.3 m/s was 12.50 and 32.74 kJ/mol, respectively. Effective moisture diffusivity also increased with increase in air velocity and temperature.