Author(s)

Isaac Godfred Antwi^*, Ahmad Addo, Ato Bart-Plange

Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.

The water absorption kinetics of cowpea and soybean hybrids were studied following the phenomenological models derived from Fick’s diffusion law. Significant intra and inter varietal variations were observed on the physical characteristics of the seeds. The proposed Fick’s law of diffusion was shown to significantly describe the kinetic of water absorption irrespective of the variety and temperature. The effective diffusivities of the hybrids were shown to vary in the order Nagbaar > Nhyira > Tonaa > Anidaso and increased as the soaking temperature increased from 30d°C to 60d°C. The estimated values for water diffusion coefficients varied from 2.90 × 10^-10 to 6.75 × 10^-10 m²/s for cowpea and soybean hybrids. An Arrhenius-type equation described the strong temperature effect on the diffusion coefficient with activation energies ranging from 7.73 to 8.56 kJ/mol for cowpeas and 5.51 to 8.14 kJ/mol for soybeans.

Soybean, Cowpea, Water Absorption, Arrhenius-Type Equation, Diffusion Coefficient

Antwi, I. , Addo, A. and Bart-Plange, A. (2021) Water Diffusion Coefficients of Selected Legumes Grown in Ghana as Affected by Temperature and Variety. Open Journal of Applied Sciences, 11, 861-873. doi: 10.4236/ojapps.2021.118063.