Drying Kinetics and Modelling of Keladi Tikus (Typhonium flagelliforme (Lodd) Blume)

Keladi Tikus (Typhonium flagelliforme (Lodd) Blume) has many health benefits as an anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and analgesic. Its leaf and tuber can be dried and used as simplicia. This study was performed to discover the drying kinetics and modelling for Keladi Tikus, especially its leaves and tuber parts. Factorial Randomized Complete Block Design (RCBD) was implied as the experiment design in this study. Three temperature variables (40, 50, and 60^oC) and a dehydrated oven were employed in the drying procedure. The rates of drying of Keladi Tikus simplicia were observed, and the results are shown as the decreasing drying rate curve, i.e. drying time gets faster with increasing drying temperature. Drying models are obtained by plotting moisture ratio to drying time. The dried tuber can reach a water content below 10% at all temperature drying variations. Meanwhile, drying leaves using temperatures below 50C cannot reduce the water content to reach less than 10%. The mathematical models for the drying process were generated and their accuracies were judged by implying the statistical parameters Standard Error (SE) and determination coefficient (R²). The best model was chosen based on a comparison of six models. Page's model is the best model for all drying temperatures of tuber, while the Two-term's model is best for leaves drying. The results from this study provide suitable mathematical models to predict the optimal temperature and drying time for Simplicia of Keladi Tikus tuber and leaves.