Abstract

ARAUJO, Eduardo Fontes; CORREA, Paulo César  and  SILVA, Roberto Ferreira da. Comparison of mathematical models for description of desorption curves of sweet corn seeds. Pesq. agropec. bras. [online]. 2001, vol.36, n.7, pp. 991-995. ISSN 0100-204X.  http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/S0100-204X2001000700009.

This work had the goal to determine the desorption curves of seeds of sweet corn cultivars Superdoce and Doce Cristal, and to adjust mathematical models to obtained data. Corn seeds were submitted to desorption under different temperature conditions (30, 40, 50 and 60°C), associated with different relative humidity (30, 40, 50 and 60%) until reaching the equilibrium humidity. The following models of regression analysis were adjusted to the experimental data: Henderson-Thompson, Chung-Pfost, Copace, Sigma-Copace, Sabbah and Smith. Seeds of both cultivars showed similar hygroscopic equilibrium. For both cultivars, the equations of Chung-Pfost, Sabbah and Smith, showed the best adjustments to the experimental data, with slight superiority of the first one.

Keywords : Zea mays; water activity; moisture content; hygroscopicity.