Feasibility study and optimization of solar-assisted intermittent microwave–convective drying condition for potato

Intermittent microwave–convective drying (IMCD) is an advanced drying technology that overcomes the shortcomings of microwave, convective, and microwave–convective drying. Research on the feasibility study of solar-assisted IMCD along with investigating its microstructure change, nutritional analysis, and appearance of dried food materials is inadequate. This research aims to investigate the effects of microwave intermittency—on quality attributes and structural changes of potato slices. In addition, optimization of pulse ratio has been performed in this study. Drying experiments, namely convective drying (CD) and IMCD, were conducted to assess the quality of dried potato slices. It was found that IMCD took only 12 min to complete the drying process, whereas CD took approximately 300 min. The optical (colour) and nutritional (vitamin C) properties of the IMCD dried potato slices appeared better than those of hot air-dried samples. The overall techno-economic analysis indicates that the proposed solar-assisted IMCD can dry an equal amount of potato while consuming one-tenth of the required energy of CD. Therefore, successful industrial application of the proposed drying system might be a stepping stone in the way to the advancement of energy-efficient food drying systems.