Food Singh and Kumari, J Food Process Technol 2014, 5:4

http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2157-7110.1000319
Processing & Technology

Research Article Open Access

Moisture Sorption Isotherm Characteristics of Ground Flaxseed

Ajit K Singh1* and Nibha Kumari2
1
Department of Agricultural Engineering, NIMS University, Jaipur 303121, Rajasthan, India
2
Pilot Plant Executive, Nestle R&D Center India Pvt. Ltd., India

Abstract
Moisture sorption isotherm of ground flaxseed was determined at three different storage temperatures (25°C, 35°C and 45°C)
and relative humidity (10-85%), using the standard static gravimetric method. The GAB, modified Henderson, modified Oswin
and modified Halsey sorption model were tested to fit the experimental data. A nonlinear regression analysis method was used to
evaluate the constants of four sorption equations. The modified Oswin and GAB model were found to be acceptable in predicting
the moisture sorption isotherms of ground flaxseed.

Keywords: Ground flaxseed; Sorption isotherms; Relative humidity Materials and Methods
Introduction Materials
With increasing consumer interest in functional food, ground The material used to study the sorption characteristics was flaxseed
flaxseed is being used as an ingredient and a functional modifier in for effective application in development of functional food that was
many foods. The seeds of flax or linseed (Linum usitatissimum L.) have procured from technology market, IIT Kharagpur. To be on safe side
been used for human consumption since ancient times. Flaxseed is from the presence of cyanogenic glycosides, if any, the cleaned flaxseed
recognized as nature’s best vegetable source of Alpha-Linolenic Acid, was roasted until a nutty smell evolved. The roasting of flaxseed
a beneficial omega-3 fatty acid, which several studies indicate has significantly reduces the cyanogenic glycosides content, thus making
the ability to reduce risk for a host of adverse health conditions. The it fit for human consumption [4]. Flaxseed were cleaned, graded and
prospective health benefits of oil seeds such as flaxseed, especially in roasted in a cast-iron skillet and stir the seeds in the skillet constantly
relation to cancer and cardiovascular disease has got more consideration until the seeds turn a uniform dark brown. This takes from 5 to 7
by the nutrition workers and food scientists. minutes (Figure 1). The roasted flaxseed was poured in a bowl and
stir until cool. Finally roasted flaxseed is grounded in a spice grinder
Due to health promoting properties and excellent nutrient profile
(Sumeet Research & Holding Ltd., IS-4250, Madras, India).
of flaxseed, it has been becoming a popular functional food product
for incorporation in human diet. Flaxseed is being used extensively Experimental procedure
for the development of functional foods. The components of flaxseed,
The equilibrium moisture content was determined by standard
identified to exhibit the health benefits are fiber, lignans and linolenic
gravimetric method by exposing the ground flaxseed to constant
acid (Omega-3 fatty acid). Moreover flaxseed is a good source of high
relative humidity environment created by saturated solution of a
quality protein, soluble fibers and phenolic compounds. Moisture
particular salt at three different temperatures, viz., 25, 35 and 45°C [5].
sorption characteristics provide the necessary information regarding
Eight different salts viz., NaOH, CH3COOK, MgCl2, K2CO3, Mg(NO3)2,
quality, stability and shelf life during packaging and storage of food
NaNO3, NaCl and KCl were used to maintain respective water activity
powders. Hygroscopic nature of ground flaxseed causes for caking and
(aw) inside separate vacuum desiccators in the range of 0.10 to 0.85.
follow deterioration by oxidation. The moisture content of the flour
Ground flaxseed was kept inside the desiccators for about 5-7 days
as a hygroscopic material exerts a strong influence on its quality and
for equilibration and final moisture content for each replicate was
technological properties [1,2].
determined by oven drying method at 105°C for 24 hrs. Each set of
A moisture sorption isotherm explains the relationship between experiment was repeated thrice and mean values were recorded.
the water activity (aw) and the equilibrium moisture content for a food
product at a constant pressure and temperature. The knowledge and
Fitting of EMC data to various sorption isotherm models
understanding of moisture sorption isotherms for food products is Experimental data were fitted to four moisture sorption isotherm
of great importance in design and optimisation of processing as for models, such as Guggenheim-Anderson-De Boer (GAB), modified
instance in drying, for assessing packaging problems, for modelling Henderson, modified Oswin and modified Halsey models (Table 1),
moisture changes which occur during drying, for predicting shelf life
stability, for ingredient mixing predictions etc. [3]. Representation of
sorption data with best fit sorption model could be used as a tool for *Corresponding author: Ajit K Singh, Assistant Professor, Department of
achieving these designs. Agricultural Engineering, NIMS University, Jaipur 303121, Rajasthan, India, Tel: 91
9799415000; E-mail: [email protected]
The objective of the present study was to determine the sorption
Received February 27, 2014; Accepted March 25, 2014; Published April 03, 2014
isotherms of ground flaxseed over a range of temperatures (25-45°C)
and relative humidity (10-85%). The specific objective includes the Citation: Singh AK, Kumari N (2014) Moisture Sorption Isotherm Characteristics of
Ground Flaxseed. J Food Process Technol 5: 319. doi:10.4172/2157-7110.1000319
presentation of influence of temperature on sorption isotherm and
analyzes the data with the help of four sorption isotherm equations Copyright: © 2014 Singh AK, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under
the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted
available in the literature and finds the most suitable model describing use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and
the isotherm of ground flaxseed. source are credited.

J Food Process Technol

ISSN: 2157-7110 JFPT, an open access journal Volume 5 • Issue 4 • 1000319
Citation: Singh AK, Kumari N (2014) Moisture Sorption Isotherm Characteristics of Ground Flaxseed. J Food Process Technol 5: 319. doi:10.4172/2157-
7110.1000319

Page 2 of 3

Results and Discussion

16

14
GAB fit at 25°C Effect of temperature and relative humidity on equilibrium
GAB fit at 35°C
GAB fit at 45°C moisture content
Equilibrium Moisture Content %db

12

10
The experimental results of ground flaxseed at each water activity
(aw) for three temperatures are given in Table 2 for sorption isotherm.
8
The equilibrium moisture content at each aw represents the mean value
6 of three replications. The mean of the equilibrium moisture content
4 of ground flaxseed ranged from 2.47 to 11.02, 4.43 to 12.63 and 4.35
to 14.21% (db) for the temperature of 25, 35 and 45°C respectively
2
in the relative humidity range of 10-85%. The equilibrium moisture
0 content increases with increase in temperature at constant relative
-2 humidity and increases with increase in relative humidity at constant
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 temperature.
Water Activity
Figure 1: Sorption Isotherm of Ground Flaxseed at 25°C, 35°C and 45°C Fitting of sorption models to experimental sorption data
The results of nonlinear regression analysis of fitting the sorption
Model Mathematical Equation equations to the experimental data are shown in Tables 3 and 4. The
coefficients of the modified GAB, modified Henderson, modified
ABCaw
GAB M= Halsey and modified Oswin models, their mean relative error (MRE),
1 − Baw  1 − Baw + BCaw  root mean square error (RMSE) and co-efficient of determination (R2)
were used to analyze the fitness of model. It is clear from this table that
Modified Henderson
1 − aw = exp  − A ( t + B ) M c  the modified Oswin model gives better fit to the experimental data with
 
high R2 and lowest values of MRE and RMSE than other models.
2
Modified Oswin  aw  Furthermore, quantitative evaluation of experimental sorption
M
= ( A + Bt )   data provided on the basis of the GAB model is also good fit. Table
 1 − aw 
3 summarizes the estimated constants along with the mean relative
 − exp ( A + Bt )  error (MRE), root mean square error (RMSE) and co-efficient of
Modified Halsey
aw = exp   determination (R2). The low values of MRE (3.5122-6.0523), low value of
 Mc  RMSE (0.3291-0.4326) and correlation coefficients R2 (0.9843-0.9920)
close to unity indicate that GAB model is good fit to the sorption data,
Table 1: Mathematical models applied to the sorption isotherms to analyze EMC-
aw data for ground flaxseed. and the estimated parameters were statistically acceptable.

where aw represents the equilibrium relative humidity in decimal; M is Conclusions

the equilibrium moisture content in % (db); t is the temperature in °C; The moisture sorption isotherm of ground flaxseed at different
A, B, C are sorption isotherm constants specific to each equation. Non- temperatures and water activities were determined by the standard
linear regression analysis was used to calculate the respective constants gravimetric method using various saturated salt solutions. For ground
using software like, Microsoft excel 2007 (Microsoft Office 2007, USA), flaxseed there was a significant effect of temperature on the equilibrium
Systat 8.0 (SPSS Science Marketing Department, SPSS Inc., 1998), and
Origin 6.1 (Origin Lab Corporation, Northampton, MA 01060, USA, Salt 25°C 35°C 45°C
2000). aw Ma aw Ma aw Ma
NaOH 0.113 2.47 0.112 4.43 0.111 4.35
Goodness of fit to the sorption isotherm models
CH3COOK 0.237 3.78 0.215 4.62 0.197 5.58
Statistical validity of the fit to the models was evaluated using MgCl2 0.327 4.01 0.32 5.4 0.311 6.83
statistical parameters such as the root mean square error (RMSE) K2CO3 0.443 5.94 0.436 6.67 0.429 7.47
and from determination of co-efficient (R2) and Mean Relative Error Mg(NO3)2 0.528 5.47 0.499 7.09 0.469 8.54
(MRE). NaNO3 0.742 8.24 0.72 9.75 0.699 11
NaCl 0.752 8.12 0.748 9.61 0.745 11.1
100 Me − M P KCl 0.843 11 0.829 12.6 0.817 14.2
MRE =
N ∑ Me
… (1)
Table 2: Equilibrium moisture content M, % d.b. of ground flaxseed obtained at
different water activities and temperatures.

R2 =
∑( M − M )
e p
… (2)
GAB parameters
MO
25°C
3.496
35°C
4.112
45°C
5.623
∑M ∑M 2
e
2
p C 22.235 282.846 31.924
K 0.8057 0.8036 0.7290
Where Me is the experimental EMC value, Mp is the predicted EMC MRE (%) 6.0523 3.5122 3.6767
value and N is the number of experimental data. The value of R2 close RMSE 0.4186 0.3291 0.4326
to 1, and that of RMSE value close to 0, indicate a better fit, MRE below R2 0.9894 0.9920 0.9843
10% indicates a good fit for practical purposes [6]. Table 3: Estimated parameters and comparison criteria for modified GAB model.

J Food Process Technol

ISSN: 2157-7110 JFPT, an open access journal Volume 5 • Issue 4 • 1000319
Citation: Singh AK, Kumari N (2014) Moisture Sorption Isotherm Characteristics of Ground Flaxseed. J Food Process Technol 5: 319. doi:10.4172/2157-
7110.1000319

Page 3 of 3

Models Model Parameters Values relationship between the equilibrium moisture content, water activity
A 0.041 and temperature for ground flaxseed. The representation of sorption
B 1.311 data with best fit sorption model can be used as a tool for achieving
C 1.584 in design and optimization of processing as for instance in drying, for
MRE (%) 1.735 assessing packaging problems, for modeling moisture changes which
Modified Halsey
RMSE 5.374 occur during drying, for predicting shelf life stability, for ingredient
R2 0.970 mixing predictions.
A 0.815 References
B -11.499
1. Abdullah N, Nawawi A (2000) Fungal spoilage of starch based foods in relation
C -1.664
to its water activity. Journal of Stored Products Research 36: 47-54.
MRE (%) 3.667
RMSE 4.182 2. Teunou E, Fitzpatrick JJ (1999) Effect of relative humidity and temperature on
Modified Henderson food powder flowability. Journal of Food Engineering 42: 109-116.
R2 0.976
A 2.087 3. Spiess WEL, Wolf W (1983) The results of the COST 90 project on water
acitvity. Physical properties of Foods. Applied Science Publishers, London.
B 0.144
C 3.099 4. Yang H, Mao Z, Tan H (2004) Determination and removal methods of
cyanogenic glycoside in flaxseed. Annual Int. Meeting, Ottawa, Ontario,
MRE (%) 0.474
Modified Oswin Canada.
RMSE 0.669
R2 0.995 5. Labuza TP (1984) Moisture sorption: Practical aspects of isotherm measurement
and use, American Association of Cereal Chemists. St Paul, Minnesota.
Table 4: Estimated parameters and comparison criteria for modified Halsey,
Henderson and Oswin model. 6. Lomauro CJ, Bakshi AS, Chen JY (1985) Evaluation of food moisture sorption
isotherm equations Part 1: Fruit, vegetable and meat products. Lebensmittel-
moisture sorption in the range of temperatures studied. The Wissenschaft und-Technologie 18: 111-117.

equilibrium moisture content increased with increasing temperature

at constant water activity. Among the sorption models chosen to
test, modified Oswin and GAB model are suitable for describing the

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J Food Process Technol

ISSN: 2157-7110 JFPT, an open access journal Volume 5 • Issue 4 • 1000319