Characteristic of Unhulled Rice Drying on Swirling Fluidized Bed Dryer

Abstract

The most important thing of drying is removing moisture from materials towards the equilibrium moisture with normal ambient air. One of the drying ways is to use Swirling Fluidized Bed Dryer (SFBD) for drying materials in the form of granules or seeds. The experiment of Swirling Fluidized Bed to dry out unhulled rice was carried out. This research aims to find the characteristics of unhulled rice after the drying process and performance of SFBD. Swirling fluidized bed dryer with 15° angles of blade inclination, 650 mm of plenum chamber depths, and 30 blades were used to dry out unhulled rice 1 kg, 2 kg and 3 kg. In this study, 16.2 m/s hot air velocity and 55 °C were used to dryer out unhulled rice as long as 45 minutes. Initial moisture content of unhulled rice are 24.1% for 1 kg, 23.6% for 2 kg and 23.7% for 3 kg and final moisture content were 11.68%, 13.13% and 12.13% respectively. The evaporated mass of water was 123.2 gr, 217.5 gr, and 356.1 gr. The plenum pressure on the capacity unhulled rice of 1, 2, and 3 kg are 59.6 mmH2O and 16.7 mmH2O, 78.5 mmH2O, respectively. The drying chamber pressure on the capacity unhulled rice of 1, 2, and 3 kg are 35.1 mmH2O, 79.9 mmH2O, and 37.5 mmH2O, respectively.