ABSTRACT
Heating dry food products in containers using conventional heating methods such as steam, hot water, hot air, or a combination of any of them is often inefcient and takes a long time. Most dry food products such as food grains, cereals, seeds, nuts, spices, and food powders contain air pockets in bulk mass. Still, air present in pores hinders thermal conduction due to very low thermal conductivity (0.026-0.030 W m−1°C−1 within the temperature range of 27-77°C) (Incropera and DeWitt, 2006). It has been reported that hot air heating of chickpea, lentil, and green pea with sample sizes (150 × 150 × 60 cm3) required 9, 10, and 13 h to raise sample temperatures from 20°C to 60°C, respectively (Wang et al., 2010). The larger the sample sizes, the longer the heating time.
