Trends in Technological Advances in FoodDehydration, Identifying the PotentialExtrapolated to Cocoa Drying: A BibliometricStudy

Abstract

This work presents a systematic review of the literature based on bibliometric networksstructured with the VOSviewer application, which was run on different scientific databases,seeking for improvements of drying processes of food and other biomasses in rural contexts.Analyzed data reveals a growing interest on topics dealing with storage of solar thermalenergy and mathematical modelling to predict properties of air, as a drying fluid in solar andhybrid dryers. Solar-biomass hybrid drying technologies that use residual heat are currentlybeing applied. At the level of mathematical models, the literature analysis cover heat transfermechanisms related to changes in absolute and relative humidity of the air and foodbiomasses. Therefore, a promissory horizon to develop a continuous dryer for cocoa beans,enabling an improvement of the final quality of dried biomass and reducing operationperiods for this process in low-economy countries has been elucidated through this review.