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To cite this article: Thanid Madhiyanon, Somchart Soponronnarit & Warunee Tia (2001): INDUSTRIAL-SCALE PROTOTYPE OF
CONTINUOUS SPOUTED BED PADDY DRYER, Drying Technology: An International Journal, 19:1, 207-216
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1081/DRT-100001362
TECHNICAL NOTE
INDUSTRIAL-SCALE PROTOTYPE
OF CONTINUOUS SPOUTED
BED PADDY DRYER
Thanid Madhiyanon, Somchart Soponronnarit,
and Warunee Tia
School of Energy and Materials, King Mongkuts
University of Technology, Thonburi, Suksawat 48 Road,
Bangkok 10140, Thailand
ABSTRACT
An industrial-scale prototype of spouted bed dryer with a
capacity of around 3500 kg/h was constructed and tested. The prototype is shown to have a desirable feature of a spouted bed as well
as the capability of continuous drying and offering consistent results throughout the testing period. Experimental results show that
the prototype performs well in reducing the moisture content of
the paddy and yields high product quality in terms of the milling
quality. The high temperatures up to 130160 C were applied to
dry paddy from various initial moisture contents to the range of
1425%, dry basis without significant change in quality. Thermal
energy consumption, in the range of 3.13.8 MJ/kg water, is comparable with other commercial dryers.
Key Words: Continuous spouting; Drying; Grain.
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INTRODUCTION
The combination of two distinct hydrodynamic features, viz., the pneumatic
transport of particles in the spout which allows intensive heating and moisture
evaporation and a falling bed in the downcomer in which tempering of particles
takes place are the main features of the spouted bed. To overcome some of the
limitations of the conventional cylindricalconical spouted bed, Mujumdar (1)
proposed the two-dimensional spouted bed in which scaling up can be easily
performed. Kalwar et al. (2), Kalwar and Raghavan (3,4) studied drying of grains
in two-dimensional spouted beds with draft plates, using soybeans, wheat, corn,
and shelled corn as test materials. It was found that thin-layer drying behavior as
that predicted by Pages equation is in very good agreement with experimental data.
The circulation of particles strongly depends on the entrance height, spout width
and slant angle. It is also shown that the drying rate is significantly influenced by
grain circulation rate. In another experiment conducted by Wetchacama et al. (5), a
linear equation was found to be suitable to describe the drying rate of paddy which
depends on hold-up and drying temperature. The milling quality of paddy in terms
of head rice yield as well as the drying characteristics of paddy was investigated by
Nguyen et al. (6,7). A triangular spouted bed was proposed in their experiments.
The result of head rice yield is satisfactory as long as the moisture content is kept
above 17.6% dry basis regardless of the high inlet air temperature up to 160 C.
Although extensive research has already been performed on the spouted
bed grain drying, the focus was only on batch drying operation. For drying on a
commercial scale, continuous operation is always preferable. It is thus the objective
of this project to design and test an industrial-scale prototype of a continuous
spouted bed dryer for use in a rice mill. In addition to the fluidized bed dryer, which
has been commercialized, the spouted bed dryer is an alternative for continuous
drying of grain with high initial moisture content. Moreover, the expectation is that
grain quality is preserved, though it is continuously dried to a moisture content
safe for storage.
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Figure 3. Variation of bed height with length of dryer: feed rate, 3550 kg/h; hold-up,
310 kg.
hold-up
feed rate
(1)
The moisture reduction result of test No. 1 (Table 1) was not satisfactory.
This is probably due to nonmatching between the airflow rate and the high feed
rate, which led to residence times that were too short. Therefore, feed rates in
all subsequent experiments were limited to 1000 kg/h, which consequently led
to good results in terms of moisture reduction. The results in Table 1 show that
paddy was dried from a moisture range of 20.030.3% to 14.421.5%, dry basis
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Description
and that the mean residence time lay between 9 to 17 min. At the second phase of
the experiments (Table 2), the old blower was replaced by a high-pressure blower.
The prototype was then able to handle a maximum capacity of around 3500 kg/h
with moisture reduction in the range of 21.729.4% to 17.125.0%, dry basis.
However, the main difficulty was that high moisture reduction was required at
a feed rate over 3000 kg/h. Since the mean residence time was relatively short,
that is, in the range of 56 min, grains were less frequently drawn through the
draft channel. The final moisture content appeared to be consistent throughout the
testing period as shown in Figure 4 (test No. 13). Similar trends were found for all
15 experiments.
The question of how to reach high moisture reduction, that is, from 30%
down to 1618%, dry basis, is of practical interest. It was to be expected from
the near-to-linear trend in the moisture content with time (5) that high moisture
reduction could be achieved by extending the drying chamber length, which would
result in a longer mean residence time.
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Description
10
11
12c
13c
14c
15d
Figure 4. Comparison of moisture content between before and after drying: inlet air temp.,
154 C; feed rate, 3160 kg/h; hold-up, 335 kg; tm , 6.4 min.
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Milling Quality
The milling quality, in terms of head rice yield and whiteness, is very sensitive to the drying method and is usually employed in appraising the success
or failure of a grain-drying system. As seen in Tables 1 and 2, it is clear that the
present drying process does not have much effect on milling quality. No significant
quality change was observed when paddy was dried down to 1425% dry basis,
regardless of the high inlet air temperature of up to 130160 C. For the head rice
yield, this was due to the fact that the moisture gradient inside the grain kernel
was somewhat redistributed and equalized while passing through the downcomer,
which resulted in relaxation of the stress developed within the grain kernel and
thus gave a satisfactory result in the head rice yield. The high inlet air temperature
makes no significant change in the whiteness, since grain is exposed to the hot air
in the spouting region within a very short time. In addition, the alternative method
for preservation of milling quality is to apply a zoning concept, that is, using a
high temperature in the first zone for fast drying and a lower temperature in the
subsequent zone of the dryer for gentle drying. This is analogous to employing
the different temperature level concept as described by Nguyen et al. (6,7). The
head rice yield and whiteness results of test No. 13 are presented in Figure 5.
A similar trend of consistency was observed in all experiments.
Energy Consumption
Thermal energy consumption in the first phase of experiments (Table 1)
was relatively high, that is, in the range of 5.67.7 MJ/kg water removed. This
Figure 5. Comparison of head rice yield and whiteness between drying with ambient air
and drying with spouted bed dryer (inlet air temp., 154 C; feed rate, 3160 kg/h; hold-up,
335 kg; tm , 6.4 min).
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CONCLUSIONS
An industrial-scale continuous spouted bed dryer with a capacity of 3500
kg/h was developed and tested. No serious loss in quality was observed during
the experiments while the high drying air temperature was used. Final moisture
content and milling quality results appear to be consistent throughout the testing
periods. However, with the limitation of the existing drying chamber length, a
high percentage of moisture reduction corresponding to the high paddy feed rate
could not be achieved. The energy consumption is comparable to those of other
commercial dryers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors would like to thank the Thailand Research Fund for financial
support and Rice Engineering Supply Co. Ltd. for supplying facilities for the construction of the prototype dryer. The Kungleechan Rice Mill is also acknowledged
for its cooperation during this study.
REFERENCES
1. Mujumdar, A.S. In Spouted Bed Technology: A Brief Review, Drying84;
Hemisphere: Washington, 1984; 151157.
2. Kalwar, M.I.; Kudra, T.; Raghavan, G.S.V.; Mujumdar, A.S. Drying of Grains
in a Drafted Two-Dimensional Spouted Bed. J. Food Proc. Eng. 1991, 13,
321332.
3. Kalwar, M.I.; Raghavan, G.S.V. Batch Drying of Shelled Corn in TwoDimensional Spouted Beds with Draft Plates. Drying Technol. 1993, 11 (2),
339354.
4. Kalwar, M.I.; Raghavan, G.S.V. Circulation of Particles in Two-Dimensional
Spouted Beds with Draft Plates. Powder Tech. 1993, 77, 233242.
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