Undergrad Vacuum Drying Vegetables w/ IR Heaters: Investigating Increased Batch Time

[ravindrar]

TL;DR

For vacuum drying time before winter was maximum 4 hours in winter it is increased by 3 hours. What must be the reason?

I am working on a project on vacuum drying vegetables using IR heaters. Before winter batch time was around 3 to 4 hours now it has increased to 6 hours. Any logic behind this as though the temperature drops and RH also drop so why has the time increased?

 

[Steve4Physics]

I’d guess that you need to answer these three questions in order to understand what’s going on:

Q1. On what factors does the rate of evaporation from a vegetable's surface depend?
Q2. How will each of these factors differ (inside the drying apparatus) between summer and winter?
Q3 Is the water-content of a vegetable the same in summer and winter?

(Minor edit made.)

 

[Baluncore]

In 1889, Svante Arrhenius came up with the equation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation