ALMEIDA, Bento Vilar de.; PINHEIRO FILHO, José Borges.; HARA, Tetuo.; FORTES, Maria.
Resumo:
The present study uns conducted at the Laboratory of
Storge and Processing of'Agricultural Products, Agricultural Engineering Department, Federal University of Viçosa, Viçosa — MC
during january 1978. The main objectives of the work were to de
termine the cocoa beans pososity and to fit mathenntical models
to experimental data wn function of their moisture content and
bulk density.
Cocoa beans in their final stage of fermentation, obteined from the "Filogônio Peixoto” Experimental Station, CEPLAC, linhares—ES, were used for the study. Moisture content of 0.8;
2.8; 7.6; 14.7; 20.8; 23.0; 25.0; 34.4; 43.3; 74.5 and
105,4% (d.b.) were tested in an environmental controlled chamber
at temperature of 18ºC and 40% relative humidity. Porosity mas
determined in an air comparision pycnometer.
For the conditions under which the experiment mas conducted it was observed thal the porosity of the cocoa beans decreased linearly with their moisture content an bulk density.