Comparison of the Paddy Drying Process and Milling Quality between Re-circulating and Conventional Batch Type Dryers
Journal Title: Journal of Agricultural Machinery - Year 2019, Vol 9, Issue 2
Abstract
Introduction High energy consumption and non-uniformity drying in conventional batch type dryer are the common problems in paddy dying industry. Non-uniformity drying causes to kernel breaking chance in the milling process. Using new dryers with better performance can solve the drying problem and energy saving. In this research, the operation of a re-circulating batch dryer was compared with a fixed bed batch dryer (conventional dryer) for paddy drying. Materials and Methods This research was done in a paddy milling factory in Ferydonkenar and deputy of Rice Research Institute of Iran, in Amol, Mazandaran province. Both re-circulating dryer and conventional batch type dryer were made by Khazar Electric Company in Amol- Iran and they had 5 tonnes capacity. In the re-circulating dryer, ambient air was warmed in the furnace and blown to drying zone inside of grain bin. Natural Gas (NG) was used for air warming in dryers. Warm air absorbed paddy moisture and pushed away from the dryer. Drying temperature ranges for re-circulating dryer and conventional dryer was 48-50 °C and 38-52°C, respectively. The paddy variety was one of the Iranian rice varieties as Tarom and initial moisture content of grains was 21% (w.b), it was decreased using drying to 8-9% (w.b) for milling process. Paddy moisture content was measured each 60-120 min by SUNCUE TD-6 portable moisture tester-Taiwan. Energy consumption calculated by fuel and electrical energy summation in each experiment. Natural Gas and electrical power consumption were measured by Gas and electric counters respectively. Drying time, paddy moisture change trend and energy consumption were investigated for paddy drying in each dryers. Also, milling ratio, breaking percent, whitening degree, and elongation rate after cooking were studied after the milling process for rice dried using national standard methods and deputy of Rice Research Institute facilities in Amol. Experimental samples were 150 g and husker (SATAKE THU35B), a whitener (SATAKE TMU05) and KETT C-100 were used for husking, whitening and whiteness degree, respectively. All Experiments were done with three replication and data analyzed using T- student method in 5% probability. Results and Discussion Results showed that re-circulating dryer caused to reduce 54.12 percent in drying time and energy saving in paddy drying in compare with conventional paddy dryers. The trend of moisture content changes was longer and over-drying occurred in lower layers in conventional batch type dryer compared to re-circulating dryer. Paddy drying was 20 hours more in batch type than the re-circulating dryer. It caused wasting time and energy consumption. Specific energy consumption for water evaporating in the re-circulating batch dryer was 3.9 MJ/kg water and it was 76.25 percent less than fixed bed batch dryer. After the drying process in both dryers, paddy moisture content was in range 8-9 percent (% w.b). Using re-circulating dryer did not have a significant effect on milling yield but it had a significant effect on broken rice. Broken rice decreased by 5 percent after the milling process when paddy dried by re-circulating. Uniformity of layers drying and normal heat stress in rice kernels in re-circulating dryer reduced broken rice in the milling process. Whiteness degree of rice dried using fixed bed dryer was 2.4 percent more than the re-circulating batch dryer. Also, rice dried had more elongation rate about 6.2 percent after cooking when paddy dried by conventional dryer. Conclusion Results of this paper showed that using of re-circulating dryer would decrease time and modify energy consumption in paddy drying. The costs of installation for the re-circulating batch dryer was about 5.3 times more than fixed bed batch dryer. It seems too expensive at first but considering energy and time-saving in the drying process and suitable effect on decreasing grain breakage in paddy milling, using of the re-circulating batch dryer is recommendable in rice milling factories.
Authors and Affiliations
H. R. Gazor,A. Moumeni,
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP717928
- DOI https://doi.org/10.22067/jam.v9i2.72761
- Views 78
- Downloads 0
Remote Sensing of Residue Management in Farms using Landsat 8 Sensor Imagery
Introduction Preserving of crop residues in the field surface after harvesting crops, making difficult farm operations. The farmers for getting rid of crop residues always choose the easiest way, i.e. burning. Burning is...
Non-destructive prediction of apple firmness during storage based on dynamic speckle patterns
Introduction In recent years, the determination of firmness as an important quality attribute of apple fruits has been widely noticed. Common methods for firmness measurement are destructive and cannot be applied in sort...
Feasibility of Online Diagnosis of Botrytis elliptica Disease in the Lilium Plant using the Machine Vision System and K-means
IntroductionThe automatic detection of plant diseases in early stages in large farms, in addition to increasing the quality of the final product, could prevent the occurrence of irreparable damage. To this end, accurate...
Modeling the Effective Parameters on Accuracy of Soil Electrical Conductivity Measurement Systems Using RBF Neural Network
Introduction Presently, the loss of ground water levels and the increase in dissolved salts have given importance to the determination of salinity and the management of their variations in irrigated farms. Soil electrica...
Balancing Time and Cost in Resource-Constrained Project Scheduling Using Meta-Heuristic Approach
IntroductionAgricultural production involves a series of tasks including tillage, planting, and harvesting, which must be done at the right time for each region and type of product. Failing to complete these tasks on tim...