Volume increase of wheat kernels accompanying absorption of liquid water

Abstract

The purposes of this investigation were to determine the relationship between weight and volume increases which take place when wheat kernels are immersed in water, to develop an equation for the volume increase, and to test experimentally its validity.It was shown that the volume increase was practically equal to the weight increase divided by the fluid density. In view of this, the following equation was obtained by analogy to the diffusion equation derived by Becker.¹ where 1 − V̄ is the relative volume increase, and D_v is the coefficient of volume increase.The average coefficients of volume increase are given by the Arrhenius relation as: The results obtained in this investigation provide useful information for designing the steeping vessels.