A RICE-HUSK-FUELLED PADDY DRYER FOR TRADERS AND/OR MILLERS

By: Alexis Belonio, Daniel Belonio, and Lucio Larano

Drying of paddy is a major problem during the wet harvest season due to the prolonged rainy or cloudy period. As a result, big volume of harvested paddy spoils which causes quality deterioration and consequently demands low price in the market. This is particularly the experience of rice farmers, traders and/or millers in the Philippines.

The Rice Husk Fueled Paddy Dryer

The use of mechanical dryers to combat such problem has long been introduced in the past to farmers, traders and/or millers. The convenience of operating these dryers inspired traders and/or millers to adopt imported mechanical dryers as integral part of their rice processing business. With the present energy crisis which brings about the ever increasing price of fossil fuel, however, most of these traders and/or millers find difficulty in making their business sustainable. Moreover, most of them are reluctant to invest in new imported mechanical dryers, especially those using diesel or kerosene, due to high investment requirement coupled with high operating cost. The approach of retrofitting biomass furnaces to these mechanical dryers deemed unattractive too because of still high initial investment required for alternative fuel burner.

On-Site Construction of the Dryer

A new scheme of providing traders and/or millers with appropriate technology affordable to them has been carried out by the Appropriate Technology Fabrication of the Fan Center (Approtech) of the College of Agriculture and Environmental Management, Central Philippine University, Iloilo City, Philippines. In this new scheme, design calculations

and drawings are prepared at the Approtech and the unit is constructed by the trader/miller client themselves on-site employing local skills and labor. The client was the one in charge of the construction of the dryer, including purchasing of materials and providing labor with appropriate skill. Approtech, on the other hand, provides supervision throughout the construction of the dryer. When the construction of the dryer is finished, Approtech personnel demonstrate the proper operation of the machine in the presence of the trader/miller owner and the person who is to operate the dryer. With this scheme, the trader/miller clients gain knowledge and confidence in constructing the dryer stirring them up to construct additional units by themselves. There is a case who is a rice trader/miller client who adopted such scheme later constructed additional five (5) units of rice husk furnace for re-circulating type dryers for his personal use, which gave him competitive edge over his competitors in the locality. The rice-husk-fueled paddy dryer, as shown in the above photo, basically is a simplified version of the conventional flat-bed dryer. It is constructed with steel and concrete structure to form a bin. The dimension of the dryer can be varied, depending on the capacity requirement. For a 3-ton capacity dryer, the dimension of the bin is 4-m wide by 6-m long. This bin dimension is almost doubled for the 8-ton capacity dryer, that is 6-m wide by 8-m long. Both dryers are operated maintaining 0.3-m thick bed drying bin. The plenum chamber, where the velocity pressure of the air delivered by the fan is converted to static pressure, is three to four times bigger than the size of the bin. The fan, which delivers the air flow through the grain bed, is made of a vane-type axial fan with drive and pulley drive using either an engine or an electric motor. The furnace for this dryer is an indirect-heated-type inclined grate for burning rice husk produced in the rice mill itself.

Evaluation of the performance of the dryer showed that wet paddy, with an initial moisture content of 23%, can be dried to 14% within 9 to 14 hours at a drying air temperature of 50 to 60C, depending on the initial moisture content and the ambient condition during drying. The fuel consumption of the rice husk furnace ranges from 1 to 2 sacks per hour for the 3-ton capacity dryer; while 3 to 5 sacks per hour for the 8-ton capacity. One person is required to attend the operation of the dryer and additional persons are needed for loading and unloading of paddy. The quality of milled rice from paddy dried in the dryer was measured at 67 to 69 percent, depending on the kind of mill. The cost incurred in constructing the dryers are P170,000.00 and P325,000.00 for the 3ton and 8-ton capacity, respectively. The cost of drying paddy ranges from P10.00 to P15 per sack. These investments in the construction of the dryers, however, can be recovered within a years considering a 180-days utilization per year. Moreover, the dryer can be scaled up or down depending on the trader/millers requirement. Alternative kinds of materials, other than steel, can also be used in the construction of the dryer as the owner may require. A forty-ton capacity rice-husk-fueled paddy dryer is presently constructed in Janiuay, Iloilo, Philippines and the unit will be commissioned to the trader/miller client once the fabrication is finished by early next year. For further information regarding this technology, please contact: The Project Director, Appropriate Technology Center, College of Agriculture, Central Philippine University, Iloilo City at cpu_aprotech@yahoo.com or email to atbelonio@yahoo.com. US$ 1 = PHP 50 Released: November 2008