Temperature and humidity determination for dried instant noodle drying machine

Abstract

This paper discuss and investigate the overall effects of oven drying time in determining the moisture content and drying rate of traditional dried instant noodle or locally known as 'Mi Siput'. In this study, the effect of drying parameter, temperature and humidity be investigated and determined. Initially, 30 kilogram of the raw noodle sample will be drawn from the boiling process. From the preliminary study conducted in which the moisture content of the samples varying decreasing in humidity from 80% to 20%. Four levels of temperature (70 °C, 80 °C, 90 °C and 100 °C) were used in the present study. Analysis was performed to calculate the output produced by the machine. The data has been collected and measured using a thermometer and hygrometer. The drying study exhibited by the graph of temperature (°C) versus time (minutes) and the graph relative humidity, RH (%) versus time (minutes). The result shows that medium and high drying temperature effect drying time and humidity decreasing faster compare to low temperature 70°C. Moreover, at increased temperature utilizing the dryer machine had improved the drying process's and shortened it to 4 hours compared to the traditional method that take at least 8 hours during hot sunny days and 16 hours during cloudy days, resulting in significant extension in drying capacity.

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VOL. 11, NO. 12, JUNE 2016 ISSN 1819-6608
ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.
www.arpnjournals.com
7853
TEMPERATURE AND HUMIDITY DETERMINATION FOR DRIED
INSTANT NOODLE DRYING MACHINE
K. A. Mamat1, M. S. Yusof1, S. Hassan1 and Wan Fauziah Wan Yusoff2
1Faculty of Mechanical & Manufacturing Eng., University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Batu Pahat Johor, Malaysia
2Faculty of Technology Management and Business, University Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia, Batu Pahat Johor, Malaysia
E-Mail: khairul8906@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
This paper discuss and investigate the overall effects of oven drying time in determining the moisture content and
drying rate of traditional dried instant noodle or locally known as ‘Mi Siput’. In this study, the effect of drying parameter,
temperature and humidity be investigated and determined. Initially, 30 kilogram of the raw noodle sample will be drawn
from the boiling process. From the preliminary study conducted in which the moisture content of the samples varying
decreasing in humidity from 80% to 20%. Four levels of temperature (70 ºC, 80 ºC, 90 ºC and 100 °C) were used in the
present study. Analysis was performed to calculate the output produced by the machine. The data has been collected and
measured using a thermometer and hygrometer. The drying study exhibited by the graph of temperature (°C) versus time
(minutes) and the graph relative humidity, RH (%) versus time (minutes). The result shows that medium and high drying
temperature effect drying time and humidity decreasing faster compare to low temperature 70ºC. Moreover, at increased
temperature utilizing the dryer machine had improved the drying process’s and shortened it to 4 hours compared to the
traditional method that take at least 8 hours during hot sunny days and 16 hours during cloudy days, resulting in significant
extension in drying capacity.
Keywords: Mi siput drying process, Mi siput drying parameter, Mi siput humidity and temperature study.
INTRODUCTION
‘Mi Siput’ is a flour-based food product that is
popular among the people of Johor, especially in Muar,
Batu Pahat and Ledang District since long ago. Now ‘Mi
Siput’ is known throughout Johor and Singapore as a kind
of snack. Cooked ‘Mi Siput’ will be cooled using cold
water and rinsed before winding up in a circle using
aluminium mould and then dried using traditional method
or under the sun light. One of the famous entrepreneurs of
‘Mi Siput’ is Usahasama T and M Enterprise they
produced 40 kg of noodles in a day out production. As
mention by Elamin et al [1] the traditional sun drying by
direct solar radiation and solar dryer are presently used by
medium and small scale of industries in order to reduce
the water density in the products. Nowadays, solar drying
is the most general method been used to preserve food
based product, however this method come with
contamination problem such as dust, insect, sand particles
and soil. Also being weather dependent which effect the
required drying time can be quite long [2]. When the
designer want to design and develops the noodles-drying
devices, it must meet the demand of the particular dry
noodle entrepreneur. In order to achieve that, it requires
certain reliable data about drying characteristic of the
noodle [3]. Within this study, a smart dryer machine has
been developed in order to solve the time consumption in
noodle drying process. According to the common practice
for the traditional dried instant noodles, drying air
temperature ranges between 29 ºC and 35 °C. According
to Firdaus [7] the noodle takes a whole day to dry properly
and sometimes it extended up to two days. Figure-1 show
the traditional drying method.
Figure-1. ‘Mi Siput’ being dry used traditional method.
LITERATURE SURVEY
L.Mayor et al [4] stated in their study where food
dehydration is one of the common methods used in
improving food stability. Dehydration processes decrease
the water content considerably, reduce microbiological
activity and minimizes physical and chemical changes
during the food storage. Drying is a classic process to
preserve foods, which grant longer shelf life, making the
food lighter and even smaller for storage and also easy to
be transported compared to wet product [5]. There is a
journal written by Ndukwu et al [6] in his journal titled the
“Effect of Drying Temperature and Drying Air Velocity
on the Drying Rate and Drying Constant of Cocoa Bean”
has a similar concept with instant dried noodles drying
machine that has been developed. In his journal the effect
of some drying parameter and drying condition of cocoa
bean has been determined. There levels of temperature (55

VOL. 11, NO. 12, JUNE 2016 ISSN 1819-6608
ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.
www.arpnjournals.com
7854
ºC, 70 ºC and 81 °C) and three air velocity levels (1.3m/s,
2.51m/s and 3.7 m/s) were used in the presented study.
The moisture content of the cocoa bean used was 79.6%
dry basis (db). The drying rate increased with increased in
temperature and air velocity but decreased with time.
The dryer able to removed average of 4.66 kg of
water per day at 55 ºC to 81 ºC and air velocity of 1.3 m/s
while at 2.51 m/s it can remove an average of 5.3 kg of
water per day under the same drying conditions [6].
Results from such studies may help to provide better
solution and findings that can offer to shorten the drying
time drastically. The effect of drying temperature on
rehydration ratio a wet surface shown in Figure-2 below.
Figure-2. Effect of drying temperature on rehydration
ratio of the dried mango slices [1].
Figure-3. Effect of drying temperature on the drying time
and moisture content of mango slices [1].
METHODOLOGY
Certain improvements has been made to the
drying machine to satisfy all requirements according to
instant dried noodles entrepreneur where further studies
has been carried out to strengthen the results obtained
from previous studies. In order to obtain the precise
evaluation factor used for the research, measurement of
ambient (surrounding) temperature, humidity, air
temperature, air velocity and moisture content were made.
In addition, to obtain the uniform moisture distribution
among the samples 1, all of it will be stored at room
temperature (25 °C) for 15 minutes prior to experiment. So
that all sample storage condition will be keep the same
before drying. Therefore 12 of experiment were performed
at 4 different temperatures of 70 ºC, 80 ºC, 90 ºC and
100°C. Every single temperature will be repeated 3 times
and the experimental results recorded. Within the
experiment, the required weight of noodle which is 10
kilogram each sample will be loaded into the basket and
were evaporated for 15 minutes. The moisture content of
the evaporated noodle used was 80% dry basis (db). Then
the noodle will be spread in a mould on the tray. The
distance of each samples will be between 3 centimetre
(cm) to 5 centimetre (cm). The drying air temperature was
measured with the aid of a thermocouple attached to the
insulation wall of the dryer. Drying air velocity is
determined with a vane anemometer equipped with a
multi-meter [6]. In summary, the drying parameters were
as follows:
 Drying temperature: 70 ºC, 80 ºC, 90 ºC and 100 °C
 Relative humidity: 80 % (ambient)
 Mass of each sample: 10 kg
Figure-4. Detail design of the drying machine.
Drying parameter estimation
Moisture content calculation: The moisture
content (MC) was calculated using equation 1 below [8].
Where Wο and Wᶠ is the initial and final weight of
the noodles (g)

VOL. 11, NO. 12, JUNE 2016 ISSN 1819-6608
ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.
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7855
Moisture ratio during the drying process can be
calculated from the equation below:
Where MR is moisture ratio, M
ο
is initial
moisture content, M
e
is equilibrium moisture content, M is
moisture content [9].
RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS
There are significant effect of drying air
temperature and relative humidity upon the drying rate. In
this instance, the test was done to dry 1 kg of the wet
instant noodle to save the time and avoid product
wastages. The test objectives are to determine the
capability and effectiveness of the dryer. Contributed to
the drying machine developed, drying process has been
successfully shortened from 8 hours to 4 hours hence cost
reduction in terms of time and energy in the drying
process where consequently increases the production
output.
Figure-5. Drying temperatures against time.
Within these experimental carried out, 3
variations of temperature had been utilized on noodle
sample, low temperature between 60 ºC to 70 ºC, mid
temperature of 80 to 90 ºC, and a high temperature of 100
ºC to 110 ºC. Drying time for all of three was recorded and
shown above in Figure-5.
The changes in temperature and relative humidity
and its effect are shown in Figure-6 and Figure-7 below.
The determination of the appropriate time is based on
standard product set. The highest temperature (°C)
recorded is between 100 °C to 110 °C need only 45
minutes to dry the wet noodle resulting in darkened color
and rejected aesthetically. While the lowest temperature
recorded was between 60
o
C to 70
o
C, the time required to
perfectly dry the noodle is 80 minutes. Intermediate drying
temperature was recorded using a thermocouple is
between 80 °C to 90 °C. At this temperature the drying
time was successfully accelerated to 20 minutes faster than
the previous temperature, at this temperature the quality
‘Mi Siput’ was not affected by overheating. V.K. Jindal
[10] stated in his study where different oven drying
temperature and times resulting in consistent moisture
content in range of roughly 9% to 22% w.b.
Figure-6. Relative humidity decreasing against time.
Medium drying temperature has managed to dry
noodle perfectly. The experiment sample shows no
different with the original product in color, odor and taste
where this indicates medium drying temperature is very
suitable to dry the noodle in order to get the perfect drying
condition along with good product quality. Figure-8 show
the result of noodle samples.
Figure-7. Sample of the dry ‘Mi Siput’ under the sun
drying method.
Figure-8. Result from experiment sample dried with low
temperature where the noodle does not dry completely

VOL. 11, NO. 12, JUNE 2016 ISSN 1819-6608
ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.
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7856
Figure-9. Result from experiment sample dried with
medium temperature.
However, the relatively high drying temperature
has affected the quality and led to extreme drying to the
noodle. This specifies a high temperature will affect the
noodle appearance looks like charred. Figure-10 shows the
effect of extreme temperature. Figure-11 show the dryer
machine used for the noodle study.
Figure-10. Noodle looks too dry and change color to dark
due to too high temperatures.
Figure-11. Smart dryer machine which be used in
the study.
CONCLUSIONS
From the study it can be concluded that the
research has tried to widen the fundamental knowledge on
‘Mi Siput’ drying process. In conclusion, the study is part
of a project in effort to develop a smart drying machine for
purpose of ‘Mi Siput’ industries. The result has shown that
drying rate has significant relationship with drying
temperature and air humidity. The drying time showed a
linear relationship with drying temperature. The result of
the study can be adopted to improve the dryer concept and
capability. The optimum drying time is 80°C and humidity
below 20%, will give the desired result and should be
chosen based on the drying temperature and air humidity.
This study also focused on the new improvement of the
new dryer machine. More than that, this machine has the
ability to operate at any weather condition and also require
less maintenance. Moreover what is certain the reduction
in time consumption in the drying process. This machine
was designed to operate at low relative cost using Liquid
Petroleum Gas (LPG) replacing the electrical heater which
lead to high cover for relatively cost. After the
experiments, the wet noodle successfully dried in 2 hours
to complete one cycle of drying process with an estimated
weight around 30 kg. So it can be concluded that the main
objective of the project has been achieved. The shortest
drying time is 45 minutes for drying 1 kg of wet instant
noodle. Temperature between 80oC to 90oC is the suitable
for this instant noodle quality and can shorten the drying
time.
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VOL. 11, NO. 12, JUNE 2016 ISSN 1819-6608
ARPN Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences
©2006-2016 Asian Research Publishing Network (ARPN). All rights reserved.
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